The Gerald Sherwin Young Alumni Service Award was established in 2013 to honor an individual or group of individuals who has demonstrated exceptional service to the College’s young alumni community.
The awardee(s) shall be a Columbia College young graduate (of the past 10 years) who, by their action and support, has enhanced the community, well-being or engagement of the College’s young alumni. The award is named in honor of the late CCAA president emeritus Gerald Sherwin CC’55, aka Mr. Columbia. Sadly, we lost Jerry in 2022, but we will continue this tradition and honor his legacy.
2025 Recipients
- Iyobosa Bello-Asemota CC’19 is a VP at the San Francisco-based hedge fund, ValueAct Capital, where she invests in public companies and partners with leadership teams on long-term value creation. Before joining ValueAct, Bello-Asemota worked in infrastructure private equity at EQT and began her career in healthcare investment banking at Morgan Stanley in New York City.
Iyobosa serves as secretary on the Executive Committee of Columbia College Women, sits on the board of the Young Leaders Council and is a member of the Alumnae Legacy Circle. As chair of CCW’s Development Committee, Bello-Asemota has worked to strengthen ties between donors to the CCW Scholarship Fund and student recipients through initiatives like the CCW Welcome Package, which offers mentorship to scholarship recipients. As chair of the CCW Nominations Committee, she led a comprehensive overhaul of board recruitment, introducing open applications, interviews and building a durable pipeline — changes now embedded in CCW’s governance. Bello-Asemota also led the Strategic Planning Committee in revamping CCW's mission statement and articulating short- and long-term goals for CCW.
Bello-Asemota also co-chaired the Class of 2019’s five-year Reunion Committee; has hosted in-person programs in the Bay Area and virtually with YLC and CCW; served for more than two years on the Alumni Representative Committee interviewing students from Africa; mentored students through the Odyssey Mentoring Program; represented the College at prospective-student events; and has served as project leader for the Young Alumni Scholarship.
Bello-Asemota double-majored in economics-philosophy and Hispanic studies, earning departmental honors in the latter. As a student, she served as fundraising chair for Seniors for the Columbia College Fund and as programming chair for Columbia College Student Ambassadors. A John W. Kluge Scholar and the inaugural recipient of the Young Alumni Scholarship, she benefited directly from alumni generosity, which drives her commitment to alumni-led, participation-focused fundraising that mobilizes alumni to give at any level to expand student scholarships.
- Maryam Hassan CC’20 is a founding business development representative at Laurel, an AI timekeeping company. Before this, she was a strategy consultant at Deloitte, where she worked on large-scale organizational transformations, implementations and strategic change while navigating stakeholder risks and nuances to deliver top-tier impact across multinational clients.
Hassan is deeply involved with Columbia in a variety of capacities, from co-chairing the Class of 2020’s Reunion Committee to her University citizenship. She is the youngest alumni member of the CAA Board, where she formerly served as chair of the Recent Alumni and Student Relations Committee and is the current chair of Alumni Leaders Experience 2026, an annual alumni conference to celebrate volunteerism and leadership across Columbia’s 17 schools.
Hassan is committed to mentorship for students and recent alumni, serving as an Odyssey Mentor and former co-chair of the CCW Mentoring Committee, returning to campus often to support student-athletes, attend events and engage in phone calls with new graduates and students navigating next steps. Hassan earned her bachelor’s in Middle Eastern studies and anthropology. As a student, she co-founded the Arab Alumni Association, was a two-time captain of the women’s track and field team, received the Edward S. Brainard Prize, and the Indelible Mark Award, and was a senior marshal. Hassan earned her master’s in global affairs from Rice University.
Past Recipients
- 2024 • Jessica Chi CC’15, Brian Chung CC’16
- 2023 • Abigail Pritzker Pucker CC’14, Andrew Wood CC’14
- 2022 • Andrew Heinrich CC’13, Julian Richardson CC’14, BUS’21, SIPA’21
- 2021 • Riley Jones IV CC’17
- 2020 • Kevin Zhang CC’14
- 2019 • Matthew Amsterdam CC’10, LAW’13
- 2018 • Zahrah Taufique CC’09, BUS’15, PS’15
- 2017 • Gairy Hall CC’11, BUS’16
- 2016 • Jennifer Hsia CC’06
- 2015 • Ganesh H. Betanabhatla CC’06
- 2014 • Justin Ifill CC’06
- 2013 • Nathania Nisonson CC’03 and Michael Novielli CC’03