New Staff Members

Two new small business advisors recently joined the Pace University Small Business Development Center (SBDC) team. Sandra Cely joined the SBDC in July, and has prior experience as a NYS-certified Business Advisor at the York College SBDC. Sandra has provided one-to-one counseling in both English and Spanish to hundreds of existing small business owners as well as start-ups, and offered targeted recovery relief to small businesses impacted by Super Storm Sandy. She has also served as Controller of Merchants Hospitality as well as Senior Accountant at ACCION East, and earned a master’s degree in International Business Management.

Our newest business advisor is Anish Thakkar, who previously served as the chief operating officer at Vbar & Company, a hospitality group in Downtown Manhattan. Anish has also held a senior operations position for a privately held retail chain, and consulted for a wide variety of retail and hospitality operations ranging from dollar stores and convenience outlets to hotels and restaurants. Anish earned a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Administration from Boston University, and is also fluent in Gujarati and Hindi.

Additionally, Taiwo Adegoke joined our team this spring as a Student Intern. Taiwo is enrolled in the MBA program with a Financial Management focus at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business, and has been an integral part of our efforts to help our small business clients launch or grow their operations.