In the sometimes small circles of life Mark Brennan and I have traveled in some close circles. Mark is a graduate of Holy Cross and I am a graduate of cross state rival Boston College. We next both graduated from Cornell's Johnson School of Management for our M.B.A.'s, but we never met till we bumped into each other in the Film Annex Studio in New York City.
Mark is now a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Pennsylvania. Under the guidance of Bruce Kuklick and Walter McDougall, he is writing his dissertation on the activities of American Protestant missionaries in Cuba between 1898 and 1950. Professor Brennan's research interests include U.S. diplomatic and economic history, twentieth century global politics, and the history of classical economics. Previously, Professor Brennan worked as an equity analyst and portfolio manager covering the financial services industry for several asset management firms and hedge funds. Before his career as an investor Professor Brennan was a CPA at Price Waterhouse working for a variety of banking and financial services clients. He has served on the boards of the Bank and Financial Analyst Association, the Rude Mechanicals Theater Company, and policy think tanks.
See Professor Brennan's full background here.
In this film Mark take the following view:
"In order to invest in Afghanistan, one has to be able to stomach the political, legal, infrastructural, and military risks involved. The upside of investing in Afghanistan is that there is currently nothing there, so you're getting in there early, and the one thing I will say in support of this idea is that I'm very big on contrarian bets. So when you look at Afghanistan where nothing is going right and if you can accept all the risks, then maybe the best time to invest in Afghanistan is now."
//In this film, I take a different position and my background can be found over on my Michael Sweeney Film Annex WebTV.
//Film Annex's Afghan Development Project allowed Francesco Rulli to collaborate with Citadel's Royave Mahboob to establish Film Annex Afghanistan and create a web channel called the Afghan Development Web TV. The mission is to show the world the new face of Afghanistan by broadcasting current event videos, interviews, and news clips as well as archival material directly from Afghan Youth Development.
Francesco Rulli opened an new office in Kabul and we are now working on opening 40 Internet Classrooms in secondary and high-schools in Herat, to connect 160,000 students to the World Wide Web. I am funding the operation on my own and NOT in need of financial support.
We are now interested to interview people in Finance, you, your co-workers, and friends about:
- Going Long on Afghanistan, and
- Afghan education for women.
To get involved with the Global Initiative for Veteran Entrepreneurship and Film Annex in Afghanistan, contact Francesco Rulli at: www.francescorulli.com.
