Stephen Robert joined Oppenheimer & Co. in 1968 as a portfolio manager of the Oppenheimer Fund. He became a member of the Executive Committee and Director of Research in 1977. In 1979, Mr Robert became President of the firm and in 1983, assumed the role of Chairman and CEO. In November 1997, Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. was acquired by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. From 2005-2008 he served as Chairman and CEO of Renaissance Institutional Management LLC. Mr Robert is a former Director of Xerox Corp and NAC Reinsurance Corporation. He was Chancellor of Brown University from 1998-2007 and was a Board member of the New York Philharmonic and Thirteen/WNET.
Pilar Crespi Robert has had a longstanding career in the fashion world. While living in Rome, she worked as Fashion Coordinator for the designer Valentino. From 1990 to 1994 she was Worldwide Director of Communications of Gucci, based in Milano, Italy. She moved to New York in 1995 to open her own public relations agency - Crespi and Mariani Associates, and sold her business in 1999. In 1998 she won the ‘Matrix Award for Public Relations'. She is now a Contributing Editor of Veranda Magazine, and the executive producer of Vlast, a documentary on Russian politics.
Pilar is Vice President of the Board of Henry Street Settlement, a social service agency that serves yearly 60,000 people in the lower east side of New York City. She is on the Advisory Board of Casita Maria, a charitable organization that serves Hispanics in Harlem and in the Bronx, and a Member of the Advisory Board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.