2000 – Greenwich, Connecticut
Aimee Morner Merszei is a tireless fundraiser and fighter in the battle against all forms of childhood cancer. She recently raised close to a million dollars – $965,000 to be exact – for her favorite charity. She spearheaded the first annual Derby Day Gala to benefit children with cancer at PepsiCo corporate headquarters in Purchase, New York. Aimee and her husband Zoltan Merszei (formerly the Chairman, President and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company) reside in Greenwich, Connecticut. They have a special interest in children with cancer; their son Kevin, now a healthy teenager, was treated for leukemia when he was just a pre-schooler. The couple now serves as co-chairs of the Board of Trustees of the California-based National Childhood Cancer Foundation. Aimee was honored last year with an invitation to deliver the tenth annual Helen DeVos Distinguished Lecture in Pediatric Oncology in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her speech was titled, “Kids with cancer- Let’s promise them a tomorrow.” She pointed out the urgency of obtaining increased funding for childhood cancer research. “Despite all this remarkable progress, cancer still kills more children than any other disease,” she says. Aimee served on the board of Trustees of Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, a private boys’ school from which her son graduated in 1999. She has served on a planning committee for the American Cancer Society’s national summits on childhood cancer and is currently a member of the Advocates Committee of the National Cancer Institute. After graduation from Mt. Holyoke College, Aimee began her career with Chubb & Son as an insurance underwriter. She later became a research analyst with Smith, Barney and Company. She entered the world of financial journalism at Time Warner, traveling the globe as a reporter, writer and editor with Fortune magazine for 12 years.
