2018 Alumni Medalist Teresa Saputo-Crerend '87CC, '92BUS
Channel: Columbia Alumni
Date: 2018-10-10

Teresa Saputo-Crerend ’87CC, ’92BUS graduated Columbia College in 1987, the first fully co-educational class. Her older brothers had already graduated from Columbia (Douglas, ’81CC and Paul ’'83CC) and her mother Helen Norman Saputo had earned a Masters at Teacher's College in 1983. Teresa was a Captain of the Women’s Tennis Team and a four-year Varsity "C" recipient. Teresa remains the closest of friends with her Columbia and Barnard teammates as well as her East Campus roommates to this day. She returned to Columbia to earn her MBA from Columbia Business School in 1992. She worked for fifteen years in marketing, ten of those years for Evian Natural Spring Water/Group Danone, where she oversaw corporate sponsorship, including Evian’s multi-million dollar sponsorship of the US Open Tennis Championships in Queens, her hometown. Today she consults for the Each One Counts Foundation, a foundation that provides complementary pain-relieving services for terminally and chronically ill children and The Jesse Kolber Foundation, a foundation that provides access to and funding for college to high achieving, low-income students. Through all of life’s milestones Columbia has remained her focus and “community”; she has served on the Board of the Columbia College Alumni Association, the Dean’s Alumni Task Force, the Board of Columbia College Women and on the CAA’s Strategic Planning Committee. She served as CoChair of She Opened the Door, the first ever Columbia University Women’s Conference, in February of 2018 where she worked with her former tennis teammate Donna MacPhee (’89CC and President of the CAA) and former Alumni Medal recipient, Kathleen Crowley (’91PH, ’13PH). She relishes her work with women at the College and the University and is truly excited about the myriad opportunities for Columbia women on and off campus. Today she is a member of the Alumnae Legacy Circle, the Women's Leadership Council and in July she joined the Columbia College Board of Visitors. Teresa lives in Bedford, NY with her husband Bill and is the proud mother of Lucy (Columbia College Class of 2022), William, and Sabrina.