Falcons to Watch

Crissi Cole leads Sales and Growth at Array, and is the founder of Penny Finance, a financial wellness company acquired by Array in 2026. In her current role, Crissi focuses on expanding Array’s financial wellness and personal financial management capabilities, helping banks, credit unions and digital brands deliver more personalized financial guidance to their customers and members.

Prior to Array, Crissi founded and led a venture-backed fintech company, Penny Finance, whose investors included Kapor Capital, Techstars and Pivotal Ventures, an investment firm founded by Melinda French Gates. Penny was built to democratize financial planning for Americans, particularly women, who traditionally lacked access to a financial advisor. Before founding Penny, Crissi spent a decade at Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management in New York City.

Crissi lives in the Boston area with her husband, Jordan, their four-year-old daughter, Charlie, and two-year-old son, Jack.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

Honestly, an obsession with fixing things that are wrong. That was true when I was 21 and working in Operations at GS, when I was 31 and took the leap to start a fintech, and it’s still true today in my first Sales leadership role after the exit. I’m naturally wired to see what isn’t working, figure out why and want to make it better. It’s probably the most consistent thread throughout my career. I don’t always know exactly what the next step will look like, but I know that when I see a problem that needs fixing, I have a hard time walking away from it. Fix it, and I can sleep well at night.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

Building Penny, and ultimately having it acquired by Array, is hands down the most incredible moment of my career, and equally one of the riskiest. It was such a privilege to take an idea and turn it into a real, living, breathing company. Knowing that what we built at Penny can now reach millions of people through Array is beyond rewarding. There’s something pretty special about taking an idea that exists only in your head and watching it become something real that can impact people’s lives at scale.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

Three women at Bentley supported and mentored me in ways I am eternally grateful for: Professor Diane Kellogg, Director of Career Services Susan Brennan and President Gloria Larson. There were so many moments in my career when I wanted to quit, whether it was leaving Goldman or shutting down Penny. Both periods were incredibly taxing and challenging, and these women wouldn’t let me give up. They believed in me at times when I wasn’t sure I believed in myself. That kind of support stays with you forever.

Tom D’Eri is Co-founder and COO of Rising Tide Car Wash, a South Florida social enterprise that employs professionals with autism. Founded to create a path to employment for his brother, Rising Tide now employs 90 people with autism across three Florida locations, with a fourth under construction in Pompano Beach. The company’s operating system has achieved recurring revenue results in the top 1% of car wash industry benchmarks, proving that inclusive hiring is a competitive advantage rather than a cost. Rising Tide is now preparing to franchise the model to bring it to new markets. Tom also the author of The Power of Potential and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2019. Tom lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fl with his family.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

My brother Andrew. He has autism, and when he was turning 22 he was aging out of the school district and the support system you have through childhood. It became really clear, really quickly that if he was going to lead the full, independent adult life we knew he was capable of, our family was going to have to take action.

The more we looked into it, the more we realized this wasn’t just Andrew’s situation. Roughly 80% of adults with autism are unemployed. Capable, motivated people who hit a wall not because they lack skills, but because the world sees them as someone to feel sympathetic toward rather than someone with real value to add. That’s a systemic problem, and it was impossible to ignore.

So my dad and I set out to build something big and bold: a business purposefully designed around the strengths people with autism bring — structure, process and attention to detail — with a goal of employing them for 80% of our staff. Rising Tide started as a career path for Andrew. It grew into a mission to prove that people with autism are an incredible untapped resource, and that hiring them isn’t charity; it’s a competitive advantage.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

Watching people who were told they’d never hold a job become the reason customers come back. Every promotion, every team member buying their first car or moving on to other jobs, is a reminder of why the model works.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

Three people: Professor Rick Oches, Will O’Brien and Amanda King. Each of them, in their own way, opened my eyes to the idea that business could be a lever for social impact, not something separate from it. I came into Bentley thinking about business as a career path. I left thinking about it as a tool for changing lives, and that reframe is the foundation of everything I’ve built since.

Dominique is a Private Wealth Advisor in the Goldman Sachs Boston office, where she advises families and non-profits throughout the U.S. Prior to joining Goldman, Dominique was a Private equity analyst for the Babson College Endowment. Dominique earned her MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and was the inaugural Frank and Eileen Fellow. Prior to her graduate studies she served in the District of Columbia’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency as an analyst. Dominique co-founded Give N’Go Bentley University’s sustainable move out program during her time as a student where she majored in Global Studies with a minor in Entrepreneurship. During her undergraduate career she studied at the American University in Cairo, University of Nantes and Middlebury College. Outside of work, Dominique is actively involved in The Boston Club and Forte Foundation.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

I have always been curious about economic systems and the fundamentals of generational wealth. I can recall my first lesson on compound interest in high school which led me to open a brokerage account and begin investing. Prior to that I was fascinated by the concept of a bond and would request term deposits for Christmas. To this day my childhood bedroom holds a handmade dream cut-out I fashioned to reflect my hope of owning a bank as a child. My current role as a private wealth advisor is the ultimate culmination of my interest in public and private markets, wealth preservation and generational wealth transfer. I am honored to work with families and institutions to create durable and strategic plans to support holistic wealth strategy.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

The most rewarding aspect of my career to date has been understanding people on a deeper level and translating jargon into actionable solutions for families and institutions. Prior to my work in finance I supported impact projects around the world and enjoyed following my curiosities and applying systems based thinking to larger issues such as food insecurity or emergency response.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

There were quite a few standout professors, mentors and experiences at Bentley that have stuck with me. As a student from 2007-2011 my desire to understand geopolitics and economic systems was greatly influenced by the tragedies of Sept 11th. I was determined to curate a unique experience at Bentley by studying abroad each year of college with my own program to better understand western perspectives of the Middle East. This curiosity and broader question led me to study in Egypt, France and Morocco twice. As a freshman I attended a spring semester program to Morocco with professor Jane Tchaicha who went on to supervise my independent study program senior year back to Morocco. As much as I loved business and wanted to be an Economics and Finance double major, my study program and desire to gain fluency in French and proficiency in Arabic eclipsed my ability to meet the credit requirements for that degree. Instead I completed what felt like field work in entrepreneurship and female empowerment learning first hand about women owned businesses, the impacts of microfinance in emerging economies and broader geopolitical perspectives. Christine Lookner was another incredible resource and sounding board as I planned my study program. I was keen to attend Bentley for its strong business program as well as the broader culture of the student population. Studying at a public university in France (University of Nantes) and private university in Egypt (The American University in Cairo) were absolute highlights of my student experience as well. While on campus I took an active role in sustainability and resident led programs as co-founder of Give N’ Go and RA.

Malini Samtani is a Climate & Environment Officer for Financial Institutions, where she focuses on climate change adaptation and resiliency. Malini previously held positions as a Senior Audit Assistant at Deloitte, and a Program Officer at the Pan American Development Foundation. Malini’s work was recognized by Influential Women. Malini recently got certified in teaching positive thinking workshops and she loves helping people cultivate a mindset shift. She graduated from Bentley with a degree in Accounting, and with a Masters of Arts in International Affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

After graduating from Bentley, I went on to pursue financial audit with Deloitte in Chicago. While I loved Deloitte as a firm, and learned a lot while I was there, my heart was always in social impact and international affairs. I got an opportunity to work on a USAID-funded social impact project in Suriname, where I’m originally from and took it, which led me to deepen my love for the intersection of international finance and poverty reduction. Later on, when I went to graduate school, I understood the impact of climate change on people’s wellbeing and now I get to work on climate finance across Latin America and the Caribbean. I wanted to have a career that was both intellectually engaging and that satisfied my desire to have a positive impact in the world. I found that mix with climate change work, where I am always thinking about innovative financial instruments for climate impact that can help improve people’s lives as well as sustain ecosystems.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

I get to travel the world and work with leadership at large business organizations on understanding how they can manage their own climate risk as well as contribute to the sustainable development goals by issuing green and blue bonds and investing in decarbonization and resiliency projects that support business growth.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

Professor McNemar’s international organizations class introduced me to the world of the UN, World Bank and Development Banks, and a few years later, I started working at the Inter-American Development Bank Group. Professor McNemar’s class made me realize that there were careers like impact investing which allow you to do well while doing good and pursue your passions around global affairs and working in multicultural environments.

Dane Vahey leads business marketing at OpenAI, where he helps organizations understand, adopt and create meaningful value with artificial intelligence. As the company’s first B2B marketer, he helped build its business marketing function and shape how OpenAI brings its technology to companies, developers and teams around the world.

His work spans product and model launches, enterprise marketing, customer adoption, storytelling and strategy across every OpenAI product. He works across marketing, product, research and sales to help businesses move from curiosity about AI to practical, everyday use.

Before joining OpenAI, Dane built Stripe’s B2B marketing function and helped grow the company from a developer-first product into a global business organization. He began his career at Salesforce, where he worked in product marketing and helped launch the company’s first vertical product lines.

He lives in the Bay Area with his family and spends as much time outside as possible, usually diving, exercising or attempting to keep up with his two increasingly fast children.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

I've always been drawn to two things: storytelling and technology.

There's something incredibly powerful about taking an idea, figuring out why it matters to someone and finding the right way to bring it to life. I love the challenge of understanding an audience, capturing their attention and making a complicated concept feel clear and relevant.

At the same time, I've always been curious about how technology works and what it makes possible. I'm drawn to the things we haven't seen before and the ways new tools can change how people live, work and communicate.

Marketing gave me a way to bring those interests together. It lets me work at the forefront of technology while doing what I enjoy most: telling stories that help people understand something new.

Across Salesforce, Stripe and OpenAI, a big part of my career has been figuring out how to explain ideas, share information and make emerging technology meaningful to the people using it. That combination of curiosity and storytelling has shaped almost everything I've done.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

The most rewarding part has been what I think of as the cyclical nature of the completely unexpected. Every 10 or 15 years, something comes along that changes what we thought was possible, and I've been lucky enough to see a couple of those shifts up close.

Early in my career, I was in San Francisco when the first iPhones arrived. I still remember Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone and how transformative that moment felt. Suddenly, we had this incredibly powerful technology in our pockets, opening up an entirely new way to communicate, learn, share information and move through the world.

For a long time, I wasn't sure I would see another shift as profound as mobile. Then AI arrived.

Being at OpenAI has meant sitting on the front lines of another massive change in how we think about intelligence, what we can accomplish with technology and how we interact with computers and the world around us.

It's a strange and incredible feeling when the world starts changing right in front of you. Getting to be part of those moments, and helping people understand what they mean, has been the most rewarding part of my career. There hasn't been much room for boredom.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

Two professors stand out immediately: Dr. Richard Geehr and Dr. Tim Anderson.

Dr. Geehr taught European history and seemed like the picture of what a college professor should be. He showed up impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, but beneath that formality was this incredible warmth, humor and seemingly endless knowledge.

I remember him starting a 90-minute lecture with three completely empty chalkboards. By the end, every inch would be covered with dates, ideas, historical moments and connections. He had this remarkable ability to remember the chronology of everything, but what made him special was how he brought it all to life. He knew when to pause, when to lean into a story and how to make something that happened generations ago feel immediate.

He also brought in guests who had experienced history firsthand, including Holocaust survivors and veterans of major conflicts. Suddenly, history wasn't something you read about. It was sitting right there in the classroom with you.

I respected him immensely, but what stayed with me most was how much he genuinely delighted in his students. I took so many of his classes that I ended up minoring in European history, largely because I enjoyed being in his classroom.

Dr. Anderson, who taught sociology, influenced me in a different but equally lasting way. I took three of his classes, and one tradition in particular has stayed with me ever since.

He brought a talking stick to class, inspired by his time with the Crow tribe in Montana. We would pass it around the room, and whoever held it could speak for as long as they wanted. Everyone else had to listen without interrupting.

It sounds simple, but it completely changed the way we communicated. The conversations felt more thoughtful, more honest and more mature than anything I experienced in another classroom. People had the space to work through an idea without worrying about someone jumping in or talking over them.

Dr. Anderson was also an extraordinary listener himself. When he looked at you, you felt like you could tell him everything: your ideas, your uncertainties, your insecurities. He made you feel heard in a way that was incredibly rare.

Dr. Geehr taught me the power of bringing a story to life. Dr. Anderson taught me the power of truly listening. I'm not sure there's a greater skill.

Jessica Wang is a New York-based digital creator, entrepreneur and businesswoman. She began her career in finance at Morgan Stanley after being selected as one of three Bentley students for a position through the university’s recruiting relationship with the firm. After Morgan Stanley, while continuing to work in finance, she launched NotJessFashion in 2014 as a creative outlet. Today, she creates under her own name, Jessica Wang, and has built a global community of 8 million people across social platforms. Her achievements include collaborations with leading brands across fashion, beauty, travel and luxury. Behind the creative work, Jessica leads the strategy, positioning, partnerships and growth of her business, combining creative instinct with the financial discipline that has guided her throughout her career.

What inspired you to pursue your path?

I didn’t set out to build a career in fashion. After Morgan Stanley, while I was still working in finance, I started my blog because I wanted a creative outlet that felt like my own. I loved developing ideas, creating content and connecting with other women who were also balancing demanding careers with their personal interests. What began as a passion project gradually grew into a community and then into a business. Eventually, I realized I had created an opportunity to build an entirely different kind of career.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of your career so far?

The most rewarding part has been watching something I started on my own grow into a global community of 8 million people. I’m proud of the major brand partnerships and campaigns we’ve created, but what stays with me most is hearing from women who found confidence, inspiration or a new sense of possibility through my work. As a Chinese American creator, it also means a great deal to represent women who may not have seen themselves reflected in fashion and media when I was starting out.

Was there a professor, mentor or experience at Bentley that had a lasting influence on you?

My time at Bentley influenced me in so many ways. Through Bentley’s recruiting relationship with Morgan Stanley, I was fortunate to be one of three students selected for a position, which gave me my start in finance. Although I eventually moved into fashion, studying and working in finance gave me the foundation to become a strategic and confident entrepreneur.

Finance taught me how to evaluate opportunities, understand the numbers, negotiate and think beyond the immediate moment. Those skills are incredibly transferable. You can carry them into any position or industry and use them to make smarter decisions.

Bentley is also where I made so many incredible friends. Many of us followed completely different paths after college, but we’ve stayed close, and they remain some of my closest friends today.