University News

These Nine BU Alums Make Latest Forbes “30 Under 30” List

Recent grads stand out in areas like art and style, energy, and healthcare

In 2014, artist Amber Vittoria had a high-profile job at an advertising agency in New York City, working with Fortune 500 companies in the realms of luxury, fashion, and food and beverage. Burnt out by the long hours, she took a new job as a digital designer at Avon Cosmetics that afforded her a more manageable 9-to-5 schedule. She started using her free time to work on her own artwork. Vittoria (CFA’12) has turned her side gig into a full-time career, and today she’s a sought-after illustrator working with clients like Google and Warby Parker. 

Her accomplishments have landed her on the annual Forbes “30 Under 30” list of “breakout talents and change agents,” one of nine BU alums who made the roster. Vittoria appears on the art and style list; other categories include sports, finance, and Hollywood and entertainment.

“The list features 600 trailblazers in 20 industries,” Forbes notes. “Choosing these honorees among thousands of nominees is long and daunting, a three-layer process that relies on the knowledge and authority of our wide-reaching community, skilled reporters, and expert judges. The final product: a collection of bold risk-takers putting a new twist on the old tools of the trade. The future looks bright.”

Vittoria’s illustrations explore the portrayal of women in art and media. In “You Are Not What You Eat,” the example of her work cited by Forbes, a female figure dramatically bends to fit in the frame, her limbs and torso comprising enormous fruits. In 2018, Vittoria reached out to sneaker company K-Swiss to see if it would be interested in collaborating on a design, and the company asked her to create a promotional sneaker for International Women’s Day. She designed a brightly colored shoe, dubbed “This Space Is for You,” which was sold in limited quantities and given to female influencers.

“I’m pretty fortunate that the brands I work with have a similar voice with my work, which is about femininity, the female form, and breaking down stereotypes,” Vittoria says. “Before, I struggled to find work that I could relate to and brands that wanted to do the same thing.”

Business partners Will Denslow (Questrom’17) and Brian Zitin (CAS’17) appear in the Forbes enterprise technology category thanks to their start-up Reggora, which they began when they were roommates senior year. Prior to that, they created several other start-ups, like a study guide website, a wallpaper company, and a Facebook dating app. But their most successful start-up to date is Reggora, a cloud-based platform that streamlines the appraisal process for mortgage lenders and appraisers. The company currently has a workforce of 35, but the two hope to more than double that by the end of the year. 

Zitin says the idea for Reggora came after he spent the summer prior to senior year working at a big commercial real estate brokerage firm. He wanted to create his own brokerage and roped in Denslow, who knew how to code. “We made this algorithm that got contact info from every real estate owner in Massachusetts,” Zitin says. “We sold $5 million in real estate around Allston in the beginning, focusing on the inefficiencies around appraisals.” The venture was initially called Sonder Partners, which eventually grew into Reggora.

Reggora now uses an “Uber-style platform” to help mortgage lenders and appraisal vendors communicate, and has raised $5 million from investors thus far. “It delivers a better, faster appraisal,” Zitin says. “We provide the software to banks so they can algorithmically value a property,” Denslow explains. “They can streamline the process.” 

The business partners were surprised when they learned they’d been nominated for the Forbes list, and they didn’t find out they’d actually made the list until it was published online. “We thought they were joking,” Denslow says. “Our parents are pretty proud too, because we didn’t apply for jobs out of school. They were a little nervous. We started out working in our dorm room and the BU library, so it’s been a long road.”

Other alums on the Forbes list: in finance, Karen Reichgott Fishman (CAS’12, GRS’12), a Goldman Sachs vice president and a senior economist in its global macro research group, and Jesse Reinherz (CAS’12), a portfolio manager at global investment firm Millennium Management, whose team trades in the areas of consumer and technology; in healthcare, Bryan Nicholas Patenaude (GRS’14, Pardee’14), a Johns Hopkins University assistant professor of international health and a healthcare economist who has researched sustainable economic interventions for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa; in Hollywood and entertainment, Ben Levine (CGS’10, CAS’12, Pardee’12), an agent at Creative Artists Agency, who represents many LGBTQ clients, such as Tituss Burgess; in media, Daniella Pierson (CGS’15, Questrom’17), founder of Newsette, an online female-centric news website; and in energy, Alexandra Harbour (CAS’16), an associate at Powerhouse Ventures, a firm for clean energy entrepreneurs and investors in the Bay Area.