Photo: Alina Niculita and her partner Joseph
As we celebrate our firm’s 20th anniversary in 2022, we celebrate each of our team members. These monthly profiles are a way to learn about each of our financially-savvy forensic sharpshooters outside the office.
Alina grew up as the youngest of five in Suceava, a town in northeastern Romania. She has lived in Portland for more than 20 years now and started her career in business valuation here. Her two elementary school-age sons keep her busy with their music lessons, chess tournaments, and sports and are already experienced travelers. They all make a trip to Romania or Italy each year to see family and revisit Alina’s old stomping grounds.
While attending college in Bucharest, Alina loved studying about capital markets and economics with a specialty in finance and banks. The early 90’s was a fascinating time to learn about the U.S. stock market because Romania was just starting its own stock exchange. After college, Alina did an internship at the National Bank of Romania in her hometown and later accepted a financial consulting job at a firm in Bucharest.
When a graduate school of business in the Czech Republic offered Alina a scholarship to its MBA program, she took a leap of faith and was off to Prague for a year, and then finished the program in the U.S. at the University of Pittsburgh. Once she took a valuation class at Katz School of Business, she realized that’s where her skillset and passion aligned. With friends in Portland, she decided to move here in 1999 and took post-graduate classes at Portland State University.
Prior to joining Morones Analytics in 2016, Alina worked closely with one of the leading business valuation industry founders, Dr. Shannon Pratt, for more than a decade. As a valuation expert, Alina specializes in business appraisal and appraisal review for various purposes including business transactions and litigation. She has appraised numerous companies in diverse industries and sizes with up to several billions of dollars in revenue.
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Special talent: Attended music school in middle school playing the piano and singing in a choir. Now she helps her sons practice piano.
Hobbies: Was in a Zumba group before the pandemic. She also loves to cook, especially Romanian and Italian food. She loves to travel and to explore all the Pacific Northwest has to offer, from camping and exploring the Oregon coast in the summer to skiing on Mt. Hood in the winter.
Fun fact in college: One of her favorite professors who taught monetary policy, Mugur Isărescu, was the Governor of the National Bank of Romania. He later accepted the role of Prime Minister of Romania for a short time before returning to his role at the national bank where he is currently.
First jobs: Had three jobs during college. One was as an advertising/marketing intern with Saatchi & Saatchi, where she was part of an advertising campaign for the launch of Bergenbier in Romania. Another job was as an accounting intern for her aunt’s accounting firm. And for two years, she worked as a market researcher with USAID, an American nonprofit organization that provided seed capital and support to help Romanian businesses move into a market economy.
What she’s reading: Parenting books or anything related to business valuation. She takes her sons to the public library every Sunday afternoon to check out new books.
Quote to live by: “Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Alina loves to learn and teach others and has huge respect for education. From an early age, it was in her nature to be very curious, asking a lot of questions and looking for answers. She especially enjoys encouraging young people to be curious and to always learn, and often buys books as gifts.
Favorite thing about working with the Morones Analytics team?
“I am equally proud and humbled to be part of such an amazing group of professionals. Each and every member of the Morones Analytics team was carefully handpicked because they not only excelled as professionals and are really good at what they do, but also because they are very nice people. There are many things I enjoy about being part of the team, but if I had to pick one it’s the standard of excellence that everyone stands by in their work. I love the challenge to continuously learn and to always improve, and that is something the Morones Analytics team does best!” – Alina Niculita
