International Women's Month - Inspire Inclusion

Nicole Bintner-Bakshian is the ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to the United States in Washington, D.C.

Career
In 1999 after early assignments in Vietnam, Pakistan and India, Ms. Bintner-Bakshian joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she served in several capacities. In 2000, she became deputy Head of Protocol and served for four years as private secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs before joining the Asian Development Bank in Manila (Philippines), as advisor to the Executive Board. She returned to diplomatic service as deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing (People’s Republic of China), and Bangkok (Thailand), until she became Luxembourg’s first resident ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. In 2017 she set up Luxembourg’s first regional embassy in Dakar, Senegal, covering Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as well, while also serving as the country’s Special Envoy to the Sahel region.

Academia
Ms. Bintner-Bakshian studied at the University of Luxembourg, the European School of Management EAP-ESCP (Paris, Oxford, Berlin), as well as at the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok, Thailand).

Personal life
Ms. Bintner-Bakshian was born in Pétange, Luxembourg, is married and has two daughters. Ambassador Bintner-Bakshian speaks fluent German, French, English, and Luxembourgish.

Claire Steichen, founder of Clear Strategy Coaching, is dedicated to teaching professionals how to be more successful by understanding how to leverage their skills, navigate their work environment, and find focus. Claire supports team leaders who want to build confident teams that deliver extraordinary results. She does it using her I to the 4th Power methodology, developed from two decades in corporate sales and marketing (L’Oreal, Christian Dior, Givaudan), her MBA from Columbia Business School, and 14+ years coaching and training professionals at Fortune 500 organizations.

Fiorenza Cingolani joined Elvinger New York in 2021 to launch the Corporate Banking Finance Department of the office. Prior to joining Elvinger NY, Fiorenza was a lawyer with Elvinger Hoss Prussen in Luxembourg since 2016. During her tenure there, she was also seconded at the firm’s Hong Kong office in 2018. Fiorenza holds a double maîtrise in business law and in management from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France). An avid traveler, after her studies in Paris and before starting at Elvinger Hoss Prussen in Luxembourg, Fiorenza spent seven months in Costa Rica where she worked in the corporate practice of one of the top tier-law firms.

Janine provides international corporate legal services as part of the Luxembourg Legal Desk at Donahue & Partners, LLP, an independent law firm that is allied with EY Tax and is part of the global EY law network, and is based in New York City.

Janine’s practice focuses on the legal planning, the setting up and the implementation of complex cross-border corporate group structures, restructurings and financings, often in the context of tax reorganizations.

Janine also provides global project management and coordination services for multinational and multi-disciplinary transactions.

Apart from corporate law matters, Janine has experience advising on cross-border M&A, private equity and equity capital markets transactions.

Janine graduated with a dual degree from University of Trier School of Law in Germany. She also holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Boston University School of Law.

Prior to joining Donahue & Partners, LLP, Janine gained extensive experience assisting international clients at the Luxembourg and New York offices of two Benelux law firms.

Janine is well-equipped to assist multinational clients through her diverse international legal experience and multiple legal qualifications to practice law in Luxembourg, Germany, New York State and England & Wales enabling her to analyze matters from a truly international perspective.

Ámbar Margarida designs projects that inspire meaningful exchanges between people and place. A systems thinker, she embraces the interconnection of things like soil health on climate change and architectural material selection on the health of building occupants and fenceline communities. Her intent to improve the human experience is reflected in her expertise designing spaces for non-profit organizations, the US government, and universities.

Ámbar earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design from the School of Visual Arts, where she now teaches critical thinking at the ID: Built Environments program. She is a founding member of the Latino American Commercial Real Estate Association (LACREA) and has been featured in publications such as Interior Design Magazine, Oculus, and The New York Times. 

Isabelle Steichen moved from Europe to the US in 2013. She worked closely with founding teams for various early-stage VC-backed startups in NYC in the food and tech space. Her first role was at Kitchensurfing, an on-demand chef service that she helped launch in various US markets. Then she went on to be the GM for the US at Voyage Control and, most recently, ran the operations and customer service team at Sawyer, a Brooklyn-based education software company that she scaled from 50 to 500 providers within 18 months. Isabelle has additionally worked as a consultant with IfOnly, Hungryroot, Human Ventures and various other startups. As a long time passionate vegan, certified in plant-based nutrition from Cornell, as well as the founder of the Plantiful Podcast, she is combining her startup background with her desire to spread plant-based eating with Lupii. Lupii is making delicious and nutritious pasta out of the low-carb, high-protein, and regenerative lupini bean. Lupii products are sold on 1,000 doors across the NE, SoCal, and PNW, including Whole Foods and Costco, as well as on Amazon, Thrive Market, and D2C. 

Marc is from the Netherlands, but has lived in many countries including Saint Thomas, Jersey, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. The past 9 years he has lived in NYC and lives in Chelsea, together with his wife he met here, but who is originally from India. Marc currently works for Apex as Head of Sales for International Solutions, with a particular focus on assisting US based clients with fund and corporate solutions in Luxembourg.

An enthusiastic individual, Manli joined Ocorian as a Business Development Manager in March of 2022 and is based in New York.

Manli is responsible for introducing and expanding the Ocorian brand with a focus on fund services within the Private Equity sector.

Manli has an eclectic career background; she began her career as an architect living in San Francisco, but moved into business development and has clocked up over five years of business development experience within the fintech space including working for NEX, CME group and SS&C.