APRIL 1, 2019 VOL. 55, No. 13
westfaironline.com
Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, at Fairfield University’s Quick Center for the Arts. Photo by Phil Hall.
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A solid international business relationship
ISRAEL OFFERS U.S. COMPANIES GREAT ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES, SAYS FORMER AMBASSADOR DANIEL SHAPIRO BY PHIL HALL phall@westfairinc.com
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lthough Israel takes up a relatively small slice of the world map — its approximately 9 million people live in a country that is roughly the size of New Jersey — its economic attractiveness far exceeds its geographical limits, according to Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S.
ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration from 2011 to 2017. In an exclusive interview with the Business Journal ahead of his March 26 appearance at Fairfield University’s 2019 Bennett Lecture in Judaic Studies, Shapiro noted that while U.S. consumer goods companies can find traditional opportunities exporting to the Israeli market, the best economic potential for U.S. companies
Ross Riskin, the Sacred Heart University doctoral student and author of “The Adviser’s Guide to Education Planning.” Photo courtesy Sacred Heart University.
can be found in the nation’s technology sector. “The typical pattern has been an Israeli entrepreneur or innovator who will come out of the army with some technical skills and begin a startup with technology and apps that provides a solution to a problem,” Shapiro said. “A major American technology company like Microsoft or Google or Apple or IBM will spot them and will acquire the company, and make that the beginning of an R&D center. Technology companies have determined that there is so much quality innovation coming out of Israel that they cannot afford not to be there.” » BUSINESS
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SACRED HEART DOCTORAL STUDENT: COLLEGE ADMISSIONS SCANDAL ‘IS MORE WIDESPREAD THAN PEOPLE THINK’ BY PHIL HALL phall@westfairinc.com ROSS RISKIN HAS NO CAREER PLANS TO BECOME AN AUTHOR, but the Sacred Heart University doctoral student took it upon himself to write “The Adviser’s Guide to Education Planning” when he realized there was a void in the financial planning publishing category. “There were guides for
Social Security planning and retirement planning, but nothing in the education funding area,” he recalled. Riskin, a student in the doctor of business administration in finance program at the Fairfield-based university, is no stranger to the subject of education planning: he is also vice president of Riskin & Riskin PC, a public accounting firm » COLLEGE
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