Alumni Feature
Joseph Di Salvo (CAS ’94) is the founder and managing partner of the law firm Di Salvo Howard PLLC. He works with private equity-backed, founder-driven companies in a wide variety of consumer-packaged goods categories, helping them navigate the challenges of their small- and middle-market growth experiences. Prior to this, Joe was general counsel to the maker of vitaminwater® and smartwater®, where he worked for several years with a group of his close childhood friends before Coca-Cola purchased the business in 2007 for $4.1 billion.
Joe is also an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, teaching Professional Responsibility & Leadership, a required undergraduate course in the school’s Business & Society Program. The Fall 2023 semester will mark his fifth year teaching in the program. Recently, he produced and directed his first film, Bronx Socrates, a documentary about NYU’s legendary philosophy professor, Bob Gurland, and his extraordinary legacy at the school. The film is available at www.bronxsocrates.com.
Below, Joe shares more about what his NYU experience means to him, his favorite spot on campus, and his ongoing connection to the school.
What did you study at NYU, and what do you do today?
I was a double-major at CAS, and graduated in 1994 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Philosophy and Politics.
Today, my legal practice is built on partnering with high-growth, founder-driven businesses. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with founders, investors, and executive teams in building some of the most successful, iconic consumer brands over the past couple of decades, including household names such as vitaminwater®, KIND®, Pirates Booty®, Briogeo®, Pretzel Crisps®, Drunk Elephant®, Sun Bum®, babyganics®, Kosas®, Vega®, and Spindrift®, among others. It is extremely gratifying to work so closely with visionary founders as they realize the successful vision of the brands they created. The appreciation for that accomplishment never gets old.
In addition to my law practice, I am genuinely enjoying my experience as an adjunct professor at Stern. It is magnificent to be back on campus again and experience the remarkable energy that has always been part of NYU, which I still remember so clearly and fondly from my years as an undergraduate. Feeling it now as a faculty member has given me a completely new appreciation for how truly special the NYU vibe is.
Tell us a fun fact about you.
Recently, I produced and directed my first film, a documentary entitled Bronx Socrates, which is about NYU’s greatest teacher, Professor of Philosophy Bob Gurland, who taught at the school for more than a half century, teaching more than 25,000 students throughout the university ecosystem and beyond. Bob formally retired from teaching in December 2019, and the documentary tells the uniquely-NYU story of one of the most gifted teachers of the last half century, and what he was able to accomplish with his students. The making of the film also is quintessentially a “New York City” story: a student from Queens meets a professor from the Bronx in the heart of NYU’s downtown Manhattan campus, which results in an exceptional friendship that has lasted more than 30 years, and counting.
Producing a film about my dear friend and mentor was such a wonderful, positive way for both of us to get through the chaos of the past few years, and I genuinely believe that the project highlights the magic of NYU as the rare type of academic institution that permitted Professor Gurland’s extraordinary light to shine so brightly for so long. NYU hosted an on-campus screening of the film on Professor Gurland’s 89th birthday, which truly was a special event, at which we also announced the formation of a scholarship fund in his name. It has been amazing to see how the film has revitalized an appreciation of Professor Gurland’s legacy, and infused a bit of celebrity and notoriety into the “retirement” chapter of his life.
What are 3 words that define NYU for you?
“A turning point.” NYU offers an educational experience that can and should be transformative for its students. After graduation, we are all compelled to move through the world as we find it and to write our own stories. Whatever the story, the experience at NYU—the courses, the dialogue with teachers and classmates, the open exploration of ideas and disciplines, the diverse academic ecosystem that the school so thoughtfully and thoroughly cultivates and makes available to all—it should all amount to a significant turning point in each student’s life. Age, experience, wisdom, all the things that the passing years (hopefully) bring our way, will determine the scope and significance of this turning point, how dramatic or subtle the turn was, the momentum it created, and its overall role in everyone’s unique narrative, but the NYU experience is a momentous marker in the journeys of all the students who’ve studied there.
Share your most memorable moments from NYU.
The most wonderful memory I have is of my parents being with me on campus on graduation day. I am a first generation “everything” in my family: first born in the United States, first to go to college, and first to look beyond the immediate confines of the working-class neighborhood in which I was raised and think about what more the world might offer through higher education. For the three of us to be together on that day was undoubtedly an immense part of the realization of their American Dream, and—as I have learned since—the beginning of the realization of my own. All the wonderful NYU moments in my life before that—the great courses, meaningful connections with classmates, my studies with Professor Gurland, the sense of intellectual freedom and inspired thinking—all were crystalized through the lens of watching my parents beam with pride at what we were able to accomplish as a family. It is still something that motivates me, and when I think about the memories of my Mom and Dad, those moments together on campus are always part of what makes me smile.
What was your favorite place on campus?
Without question, Washington Square Park. I have such great memories of being in that park as a student with friends and classmates, or on my own, surrounded by all the hustle of New York City, but also somehow feeling uniquely detached from that kinetic energy, immersed in a quiet, insular environment that allowed for time to be spent however I wanted: reading, chatting, listening to music, playing chess.
Even to this day, when I am on campus to teach, I greatly enjoy the opportunity to slow down, sit on a bench, and be part of that special place, sometimes actively striking up connections with others that are sharing that time and space, other times by just simply watching it all unfold in front of me. There is such a wonderful timelessness to the park.
If you could take one more NYU class today, what would it be?
Philosophy of Humor, taught by—you guessed it—Professor Bob Gurland.
If you could give one piece of advice to NYU’s graduating students, what would it be?
Don’t be beholden to a checklist, or a roadmap handed to you by someone else. You have your own unique experience of studying, learning, and maturing in one of the greatest educational institutions in the world, and you’ve made it through living in a city that offers the most fascinating (and challenging!) landscape—culturally, intellectually, socially, in all measurable ways. Now, go out and apply what you’ve learned to the world as you find it, and write your own story. You will be surprised how often obstacles deliver opportunities, and struggle breeds success, once you accept that your life will be played out to its own rhythm, and not by somebody else scripting what you should be doing, how you should be thinking, or what “success” should mean for you at any given point. Keep your eyes and your mind open, use your intelligence to think independently and creatively, be good to yourself and kind to others, and you will figure it out on your own time.