D’87 Raymond Lambert is a social entrepreneur, filmmaker, and published author. He has a broad-based business background; working with both publicly traded and privately held companies in entertainment, financial services, and consumer products. The founder of All Jokes Aside Comedy Clubs, which provided early opportunities (and early paychecks) to many of today’s top comedians, including Oscar winners Jamie Foxx and MoNique, Emmy winners, Steve Harvey, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle and the late Bernie Mac to name a few. He has served as a consultant on comedy and talent to producers at the NBC, BET Comedy Central, HBO, and the Second City. He earned writer and producer credits for the documentary film PHUNNY BUSINESS and is currently serving as a producer on the award-winning documentary, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and the new Harold Washington documentary, We Want Harold. Agate Publishing recently released his first book, All Jokes Aside: Stand Up Comedy Is A Phunny Business, which chronicles his wild ride through the business world of stand up comedy. Before launching his entrepreneurial ventures, Raymond served as a senior level executive in sales, marketing, and business development at Starz Entertainment Group, Shearson Lehman Hutton, Continental Bank, Gardner Rich & Company, and the Coca Cola Company. Raymond earned his B.A in Marketing from Morehouse College, and his MBA from the University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business.
Category Archives: Alumni Profiles
Kipp Kipp Hooray – D’86 Dan Kipp
Last year in Movers & Shakers we announced that D’86 Dan Kipp had launched City Capital Ventures, a bespoke capital private equity firm for patient investors, and later reported that the firm executed successful investments in both Matt’s Cookies and Diedrich Roasters.
City Capital’s success is just the next step in a long career of successes. Dan is a seasoned, Chicago-based investment professional with three decades of investing and financial advisory experience. He has extensive experience across venture capital, growth equity and buyout investments, as well as in financial advisory and corporate finance disciplines and has boardroom experience ranging from startup to multinational companies. Prior to City Capital, Dan co-founded Winona Capital Management and served on its Board and Investment Committee since its inception in 2006. He previously enjoyed a 17-year investment banking career with Salomon Brothers and Bank of America, at the latter serving as Managing Director and Global Co-Head of the Consumer Markets investment banking unit. Dan lives in Winnetka with his three great children, two playful dogs, and one fantastic wife, Suzanne. He is an avid sports fan, long suffering Cleveland Browns and (now celebrating) Cubs fan, vintage jazz & R&B enthusiast, and bass player.
He’s a poet and you didn’t know it – D’68 W. “Googan” Bunn
Willard Bunn III, or “Googan” to his friends, has not only served as chairman, chief executive, and/or director of several commercial banks in the course of his 40 year career but is also a great friend to the Darden community.
After earning his BA from Princeton University, his long career in the banking industry began at Chemical Bank in New York before he returned to Springfield in 1978 to serve as Executive Vice President, and eventually Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, of Marine Corporation, a multi-bank holding company with $1.2 billion of assets. Following Marine’s merger with Banc One, he was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Banc One Illinois Corporation, a position which he held until 1994. Afterwards, he went on to serve in various management positions with two investment banking firms.
But wait, there’s more, he also served as a Director of Baytree Bank of Lake Forest, Illinois from its founding in 2000 and as Chairman of the Bank from April 2010 to August 2012. And he continues to serve on the Board of Directors of CIB Marine Bancshares, Inc., a bank holding company based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, that operates banking offices in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He also serves on the Boards of Midland National Life Insurance Company and North American Company for Life and Health Insurance, insurance subsidiaries of the Sammons Financial Group. In 2012, he joined Colonnade Advisors in 2012 as a Managing Director.
What you may not know is that in addition to a heavy left-brain career path, Willard is a member of the Board of the Poetry Foundation, a literary organization and publisher of Poetry magazine. I know his writings are much better than:
Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.
Darden Chicago Alumni 