Three Alumnae Named to Business Review Power 50

Three Albany Law School alumnae have been named to the Albany Business Review’s Power 50 for 2025.

The publication’s latest list is comprised of 50 pairs of Capital Region business leaders, restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and more. 

Connie Cahill ’83, Managing Partner and Melissa Zambri ’98, Partner, both at Barclay Damon, were chosen as a pair of leaders at one of the Capital Region’s largest law firms.

Cahill has been a member of the firm's Management Committee since 2010. Cahill has more than 35 years of experience in public finance and wears many hats at Barclay Damon. Cahill serves as bond counsel, underwriter's counsel, borrower counsel, and bank counsel in public finance transactions that involve New York State agencies and authorities, industrial development agencies, local development companies, municipalities, and school districts. Cahill represents many clients as the bond counsel to more than 100 municipalities and school districts.

Zambri is a member of Barclay Damon’s Management Committee and managing director of the Albany office. She is also the co-team leader of the Health Care and Health and Human Services Providers Teams and is a former member of the Compensation Committee.  In her practice, Zambri focuses on enterprise development and regulatory guidance for the health care industry. She assists health care clients with certificate-of-need applications, compliance programs, audits, investigations and self-disclosures, HIPAA compliance, and licensure issues. Zambri counsels providers on federal anti-kickback and self-referral requirements, regulations governing federal- and state-funded health care programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and other regulatory requirements applicable to health care providers. 

She serves as an adjunct faculty member for Albany Law School's Online Graduate Programs. Zambri teaches Health Care Compliance and HIPAA Compliance. She is also a mentor for the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Sonya del Peral ’91 was also named to the list alongside her son, Alejandro del Peral. The mother-son team has built one of the region’s most successful craft beverage businesses, Nine Pin Cider Works. 

Nine Pin Cider was founded in 2012 based on a commitment to supporting New York’s apple farms and orchards. Nine Pin was awarded New York State’s first farm cidery license, which requires cider production to use 100% New York State apples/fruit. 

In 2020, Sonya del Peral was named to the New York Forward Reopening Advisory Board, a statewide effort to strategize business reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
The duos will be recognized at a reception on July 17 at Loft 433 in Troy.