Christine Birnbaum is a professionally certified executive coach and Principal of Claremont Coaching. She retired from the New York Life Insurance Company where she was a Vice President of Human Resources. In this role, she was a Human Resources Business Partner responsible for supporting both the investments finance and technology functions.

Prior to this role, Christine was the Talent Management executive for Investments. In addition, she served as the Investments Diversity and Inclusion Officer. She was a co-head of The Women's Initiative at New York Life. Christine was also active in New York Life's Volunteer for Good program.

Previously Christine worked at JPMorgan Chase as a senior human resources executive and worked in a variety of businesses including credit card, middle marketing banking, international private banking, and consumer banking.

With the Financial Women's Association (FWA) she has served in a number of Board positions and currently is responsible for a leadership initiative called Pacesetters and mentors at Seton Hall University.

In addition, Christine is a member of Ellevate (formerly known as 85 Broads) and a volunteer at the Morris County Interfaith Food Pantry.

Christine graduated from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and has a B.A. in History and a M.Ed. in Education. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Colleen Bryson graduated from Saint Elizabeth University with a B.A. in Psychology and went on to earn her M.A. in Leadership while working in higher education administration.

After graduating with her Masters she began a career working for Seamless.com, a technology startup in NYC. Seamless is now more broadly known and publicly traded on the NYSE as GrubHub.

After seven years of progressive career growth and business leadership, Colleen was recruited to join ADP and help grow and scale one of their smaller business units.

At ADP Colleen held various roles heading their Implementation and Support teams and helped grow the business unit from $10MM to $40MM during her seven years with them, but mostly she prided herself on growing her team members and their careers.

Recently, Colleen ventured back into the Startup world to join EverythingBenefits where she is the Vice President of Client Success. She continues helping grow and scale the business and empowers her team to make a difference for their clients and grow in their own careers.

With helping others grow their career having been a central theme of Colleen’s 15 years of leadership, she was excited for the opportunity to be a part of the Mentoring Advisory board and work with the students at SEU.

Johanna O’Bannon, an alumnae of SEU (Class ‘02), received her Bachelors in Science in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. She graduated with high honors and was a recipient of the Catherine Ann Lowry award for Biology.

During her undergraduate years, she was president of the Tribeta Club, a part of the honors society program (Kappa Gamma Pi) and the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) program.

She volunteered her time on campus by tutoring students on Biology/Chemistry courses, helped feed families at the Morristown Soup Kitchen, and assisted with cleaning up highways via the adopt the highway program. She also worked part-time on campus for the Microbiology Department assisting with setting up labs.

Johanna interned at the University of Missouri in the Breast Cancer research program. After graduation, she began her professional career at Organon pharmaceuticals as a Quality Control Microbiologist then later pursed her Master Degree in Biomedicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry. She continued advancing her career by working at Abbot Laboratories, Schering Plough and Discovery Labs.

Currently, she works at Ferring Pharmaceuticals as a QC Supervisor. Her major contribution has been overseeing the construction and implementation of a brand new laboratory.

Johanna is excited to be a part of the Mentoring Advisory Board and is eager to help expand the platform of opportunities for students in all disciplinary fields. Her advice for students looking to explore a career is to leverage your studies by volunteering and doing internships in your field of interest. She believes these opportunities will make you marketable in the competitive workforce and will better prepare you for the corporate world or entrepreneurship.

Johanna hopes to encourage students to engage in opportunities that will foster their professional growth. She enjoys helping others, traveling, running and cooking healthy foods.

Cyndi Roberson currently serves as Director of Volunteer Recruitment & Corporate Relations for Students 2 Science, a non-profit organization with a mission to inspire, motivate and educate elementary, middle and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects.

She is responsible for recruitment and placement of volunteers for two programs at two locations (East Hanover, NJ and Newark, NJ). These volunteers work with students in the organization’s labs and in classrooms of participating schools throughout New Jersey.

Ms. Roberson received her B.A. from Wright State University (Ohio) with a concentration in broadcasting. She has also received a Master’s of Public Administration from Seton Hall University (NJ) with a concentration in leadership, governance and policy that strongly emphasized managerial and analytical skills, along with ethical and professional values.

Ms. Roberson has had an extensive career in grant writing having served as Associate Director of Grants for Essex County College and Government Grant Writer for Eva’s Village, a non-profit social service organization in Paterson. She has a strong passion for post-secondary education and believes in the power of mentorship as a means of retention, completion and non-traditional participation.

Samantha graduated with a Bachelor's degree in English and Managerial Communications and a minor in Women's Studies from SEU. She went on to obtain her Master of Public Administration from Rutgers University in 2014. Throughout her time at SEU and beyond, Samantha has dedicated her career to working in support of educational access opportunities and initiatives for minority students and students of color - regardless of where they fall in their academic trajectories.

Currently, she works as the Associate Dean of Scholars Programs at NJ SEEDS - an educational access organization that prepares and places high achieving students with limited resources in selective high schools and colleges across the nation.

Samantha's favorite thing about SEU was the friends she made through the EOF Program. The program provided her with the opportunity to intern at various public service organizations and connected her with a large network of like-minded people that positively impacted her college experience.

The advice Samantha has for current students is, "Claim your college experience. Lots of learning and professional development happens beyond the classroom and you can't be afraid to take advantage of those opportunities. You never know where they may lead!"