  | Tom Cerio, executive vice president of program distribution at HBO, | |||
Connections and Reconnections
By Jennifer Sherwood ’89 Tom Cerio and Donna Arnold could be described as a power couple. He is the executive vice president of program distribution at HBO. She quickly rose in the banking world in New York City to become a V.P. at J.P. Morgan, a first class money center bank. Their success would lead you to believe that career comes before anything else. Refreshingly, this is not the case. What makes them a remarkable couple is their unwavering devotion to one another and the well being of their two sons. Recently, Arnold and Cerio moved back to Connecticut from the West Coast where Cerio was a senior vice president for Buena Vista, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. Cerio quickly jumped into his new position at HBO while Arnold completed the painful business of moving. Between preparing for a new job and a new school year, they didn’t have time to be interviewed together. However, the couple lost no time in reconnecting to URI. They are chairing one of the University’s biggest fund raisers, the Annual Winter Gala, which will take place at the Hyatt Regency-Newport on January 31, 2004. Arnold has been busy attending Gala meetings and is working to tie in other URI activities to the event. Cerio is an energetic man with an easy smile. Walking through HBO’s cafeteria one rainy morning, he was greeted enthusiastically by a wide variety of people. Though he hasn’t been on the job for long, he is obviously well known and liked. In talking about his career philosophy, Cerio emphasized his connection to people. “You have to take the long-term view. If you think selfishly, you will cut yourself off. People can tell when you have their best interest in mind and they respond.” His philosophy has worked well. He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 after a big promotion by Buena Vista Television. Then, just three years later, HBO lured him away to fill a newly created position designed to help them bring in new streams of revenue. This might seem like a strange path for someone who started out as an arborist. “A friend of mine tried to sum it up-‘so, you went from cutting down trees to selling fashion jewelry in Manhattan to television’,” laughed Cerio. The central element behind each of his career moves has been his wife’s support. Cerio, a 1976 graduate, met Arnold at URI when he was a student in the College of the Environment and Life Sciences. “Donna encouraged me to take business courses to complement my horticulture classes,” Cerio explained. “She has been a great inspiration to me. I would never have moved without her urging and excitement about each new opportunity. I’m very lucky because I have an incredibly supportive family.” The couple originally moved to New York City for Arnold’s career. After earning a B.A. in German in 1976 and an M.B.A. in 1978, she began her career at Swiss Bank Corp., an international banking firm. “Donna excelled at banking—she was the first woman to skip a rank in J.P. Morgan’s treasury and was far out-earning me!” Cerio said proudly. Chatting with an interviewer on the phone, Arnold downplays her accomplishments. “J.P. Morgan was a great company to work for,” she said. “They believed in moving people through a lot of different areas so they could learn broadly. They were really a cutting-edge business.” Arnold was with J.P. Morgan for 14 years. During that time, she and Cerio started a family. As Cerio explained, “Donna worked from home two days a week and in the office three days a week. We had an extraordinary nanny who stayed with us until Victor (their younger son) was two years old.” Then, things changed. After an atrocious experience looking for a new nanny, Arnold made the decision to put her career on hold to raise her two boys. She channeled her energy into her family. And in 2000, when Cerio received the offer to move to Los Angeles, Arnold encouraged him to go for it. “We have always been partners and collaborators—from buying a couch to major life decisions,” commented Cerio. “She makes the most of everything and has always been the catalyst for our adventures.” Arnold worked hard to smooth her family’s entrance into a new life in California. The first challenge was to find a school for her sons. The public school system had a bad reputation, but room in private schools was hard to find because it was mid-year. At the last minute, she found a school for them. “I literally sent out a couple of boxes with clothes in them and moved,” she said. “It took me six months to get caught up.” Soon, she was putting her initiative to use on behalf of her sons’ new school. The school had a community service requirement for its students, but the program was under-developed—the experience wasn’t meaningful for students. Arnold reorganized the program, integrated community resources, matched students with not-for-profit organizations, and coordinated their schedules. “When I take on a project I really like to get my arms around it,” she said. “I started the program and was able to roll it out as I envisioned it.” Her efforts were appreciated by some tough critics—the students. “Every semester the school holds an awards ceremony. I was given an award for my work on the program and the students gave me a standing ovation,” said Arnold, who was deeply touched by this recognition. She also took on another challenge. The East Coast is the epicenter of her son’s chosen sport, lacrosse; transplanting to the West Coast meant no more playing opportunities. So Arnold organized a team at Harvard-Westlake School, despite the fact that there was no school support, no scholarships, and no physical education credit available. And since you can’t have a team without a league, she became a founding member of the Pacific Coast Lacrosse Association. “It was truly a labor of love. The kids played it because they wanted to,” said Arnold, who is still wistful about leaving the team that she managed. “Luckily, the school’s new athletic director is a former lacrosse player.” So after three years of hard work, the school has made lacrosse an official club sport, and the league is thriving—managing its fast growth is its biggest challenge. Both Cerio and Arnold are excited about the upcoming Winter Gala and about spreading the word about URI. “There have been a lot of changes at URI in the last 10 years that I think alums would really like to see,” said Arnold. Jennifer Griffin Sherwood ’89 is the director of development and marketing for Turtle Bay Music School in New York City. |
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