Established in 2007 by Ed Giera, W'84, and Kim Hirschman, W'87, the Giera-Hirschman Fund supports acquisitions for the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
"We chose to establish an endowed fund at Penn Libraries because the Universitys library system is fundamental to its mission to excel in instruction and research across disciplines, and we wanted to support that objective."
A 1984 graduate of the Wharton School with a B.S. in Economics, Ed began his career in finance as an analyst at Associated European Capital Corporation in New York. He went on to serve as a V.P. of Capital Markets at Kleinwort Benson, Inc., before joining J.P. Morgan Securities, LLC in London, where he worked from1992-2011. Ed held various positions, including Head of Debt Capital Markets, Head of Debt Origination, and Global Head of Pension Advisory. He is currently Managing Member of E. J. Giera, LLC, providing consulting services to private, public and not-for-profit corporations. Ed has served as Director on several boards, and presently holds memberships at Renshaw Bay Real Estate Finance Fund L.P., NovaTech, L.L.C., and Pension Insurance Corporation Holdings LLP.
Kim graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School in 1987. Following a six month interval in Japan with Nomura Securities, she joined Morgan Stanley and worked as an investment banker in New York and London, specializing in fixed income securities and loan originations from French, Spanish and Italian corporations, banks and governments. From 1996-2002 she was an asset manager for Morgan Stanley Asset Management London, specializing in real estate and fixed income product development. In 2002 she received her Diploma in Translation from the Chartered Institute of Linguistics and has since worked as a freelance translator in the corporate and charity sector.
During their 20 years in England, Kim was an active volunteer with the Penn UK Annual Fund, and served as an interviewer for the Secondary School Committee. In 2012, she assumed the Co-Chair position of the Orrery Society, a society dedicated to raising awareness of, and funds to support the digital and print collections at Penn Libraries. In addition to their collection endowment fund, Ed and Kim have generously supported the University through the Edward Giera and Kimberly Hirschman Fund. They currently reside in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.