Ann Compton has always been a pioneer. As the first woman assigned to cover the White House on network television and with 41 years on the air for ABC News, her longevity and impact are unparalleled.

After retiring from daily coverage in 2014, Compton reignited her legendary career by returning to ABC to cover the 2016 political conventions, as well as accepting a fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government focusing on media coverage of the 2016 election. She now combines her personal experiences on the White House beat with fresh scholarship from the prestigious Miller Center for presidential studies in Virginia.

Compton’s career at ABC News spanned seven presidents and 10 presidential campaigns. Assigned to the White House in 1974, she reported for ABC News broadcasts from Washington and around the globe, traveling with Presidents, Vice Presidents, and First Ladies. President Barack Obama announced her retirement when calling on her at a West Wing news conference saying, “Ann Compton, everybody here knows, is not only the consummate professional but is also just a pleasure to get to know.”

Compton was traveling with President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, and was the only broadcast reporter to remain on Air Force One to report on behalf of all the press during the chaotic hours following the terrorist attacks, when the President was unable to return directly to Washington. For that coverage, which she considers the most significant story of her career, Compton received special recognition in the awards bestowed on ABC’s coverage, including an Emmy, a Peabody, and the Silver Baton from the DuPont awards at Columbia University.

Her colleagues elected Compton as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association for 2007-2008. She was chairman of the Radio-Television Correspondents’ Association on Capitol Hill in 1987-2008. The Commission on Presidential Debates selected Compton to serve as a debate panelist in 1988 and 1992. Additionally, she has been inducted into six halls of fame and has received five honorary university degrees.

Compton is married to Dr. William Hughes, a physician in Washington, DC, and they are the parents of three sons and a daughter and the proud grandparents of three granddaughters. Compton says her most valued award is a golden statuette bestowed by the National Mothers' Day committee naming her a “Mother of the Year” in 1988.

Joann S. Lublin was management news editor for The Wall Street Journal, working with reporters in the US and abroad, until she retired in April 2018. She remains a regular Journal contributor. She speaks about issues such as leadership and executive women. She created the Journal’s career advice column in 1993 and kept writing its “Your Executive Career” column until May 2020. She shared its Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for stories about corporate scandals. She is the author of the popular 2016 book Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World. She won the 2018 Lifetime Achievement from the Loeb Awards, the highest accolade in business journalism. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with honors from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in communications from Stanford University. She lives in Dresher, Pennsylvania.

Kim Scott is the author of Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity as well as Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity. Kim and Trier Bryant co-founded the company Just Work, LLC which helps organizations and individuals create more equitable workplaces.

Kim Scott is also the co-creator of an executive education company and workplace comedy series based on her best-selling book, Radical Candor. Jason Rosoff and Kim co-founded the company Radical Candor, LLC to help people cultivate caring and candid relationships at work by implementing a feedback-first culture.

Kim was also a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. Earlier in her career, Kim managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.

Angela Agrusa is an experienced trial lawyer concentrating in reputational defense. She and her team have successfully defended corporations and celebrities against courtroom allegations in some of the most high-profile cases filed across the country. 

Angela understands that reputational integrity is critical to a brand. As a trial attorney, she obtains winning verdicts and defeats cases in their nascent stages. In the last five years alone, she has successfully defended brand holders in over 50 putative class actions with combined potential exposure of more than US$100 billion. She often works with clients to find administrative or legislative solutions in addressing multi party and class litigation.

Tammy Albarrán is Vice President, Chief Deputy General Counsel and Deputy Corporate Secretary at Uber. In this role, she manages Uber’s regional teams worldwide, government and regulatory investigations team, and oversees CLO operations.

Ms. Albarrán received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley and her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School.  Prior to joining Uber in 2018, Ms. Albarrán was a partner at an international law firm, where she conducted the investigation and co-authored the report with former US Attorney General Eric Holder that included concrete recommendations addressing workplace culture issues at Uber.

In her free time, you will find her exercising, walking her dog, or cheering for her three kids at various sporting events.

Robyn Alexander is a senior executive, business partner, and strategist highly experienced with premier investment firms and Fortune 150 companies. She advises boards of directors and C-suite executives on enterprise-wide legal and business issues. Throughout her career as a real estate expert, she has led companies through value-enhancing start-ups and transitions by aligning strategy and growth directives with corporate goals and broader industry opportunities. Her background encompasses transactions, operations, and leasing in the financial services, industrial, shared services, multifamily, logistics, retail, and office sectors among others. As real estate environments fluctuate, Ms. Alexander’s global perspective and legal foundation inform the critical risk issues she elevates for board level attention.

Currently, she serves as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Revantage, a Blackstone Company established as the shared service provider for the firm’s global real estate portfolio. Blackstone is the largest buyer/seller/borrower of commercial real estate across all asset classes in the world. Ms. Alexander leads transactions and leasing ($100B+) for Revantage in multiple commercial real estate sectors, representing 70 percent of revenue. Concurrently, she oversees all legal department operations and manages aspects of the global legal team expansion into U.K., Singapore, and Luxembourg.

To meet the increasing level of investment capital, Ms. Alexander transformed operations by focusing on strategic delivery of legal services for all portfolio companies. Numerous outsourced legal firms serving Blackstone in an array of areas were reduced to 10 approved firms, with dedicated specialists. Those trusted working relationships have markedly decreased the transactional closing time for competitive advantage. Her priority is delivering continuity, she introduced an automated due diligence and transaction reporting process to coalesce the valuable data points and ultimately create a proprietary pool of information. Through robust data analytics in real time and increased reporting, senior leadership will be able to identify and assesses global patterns and trends influencing strategy development, and pivot according to cyclical inflection points.

Before joining Revantage, Ms. Alexander was Divisional V.P. and Deputy General Counsel of Supply Chain, Home Services at Sears Holdings Corporation, earlier she was General Counsel of Real Estate following roles with increasing responsibility during her 13-year tenure. Her approach to risk identification and response strategies aligned with business and investment priorities led to success in a variety of large-scale transactions including partnering with securities counsel on the complex “spinoff” of A+ portfolio real estate into a newly created REIT, Seritage Growth Properties. She also negotiated and led aspects of significant portfolio mergers and acquisition transactions, including Sears Outlet and the

$500M Land’s End sale and Sears Home Improvement sale.

In recognition of her leadership and professional expertise, Ms. Alexander is a Board Member of the Advisory Council of ICSC Legal and a member of both CCWC – Corporate Counsel Women of Color. She has guest lectured on real estate law at Northwestern University School of Law. While at Sears, she supported Street Law, a non-profit program to interest youth in the legal profession. Her dedication to women’s health is well known, she is a member of the Young Leadership Council and advocate for the Basser Center of Medicine and earlier a Board Member of the Counsel for a Cause for the American Heart Association’s Chicago Chapter.

Ms. Alexander, a member of the Illinois Bar, earned a JD from the University of Dayton School of Law, a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, and continued her education with a certification in Building and Leading a Diverse Real Estate Firm from the NYU School of Professional Studies. She and her husband have two children and live in Chicago.

Nicky Brennig is a lawyer focused on domestic and foreign alternative investment representation. She advises pension plans, endowments, insurers, private market solutions providers, family offices and other financial institutions on all aspects of their business.

Her areas of concentration include private investment funds, syndicated and direct co-investments, fund restructurings, general partner removals, advisory board matters, fund and advisor acquisitions and other consolidations, and fund dissolutions. Nicky also represents institutional investors in connection with the acquisition and sale of partnership interests in large secondary market transactions.

Nicky has been a member of the alternative investment funds industry for over a decade and is frequently invited to speak at major industry events. 

Recognized by the ABA as a Legal Rebel, and by the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers (North America) as one of its top 20 most innovative lawyers, Michele DeStefano is a Professor at the University of Miami School of Law, affiliated faculty at Harvard Law School Executive Education and IE Law School, and the founder of LawWithoutWalls, a multi-disciplinary, international, intergenerational community of more than 2,000 lawyers, business professionals, entrepreneurs, and students who collaborate to create innovations in the business of law and, importantly, hone new mindsets and skillsets. She is also co-curator of the Compliance Elliance Journal, an international e-journal of articles on compliance and ethics.

Michele is an author, speaker, consultant, and facilitator on innovation, culture creation, teaming, and cross-practice, cross-border initiatives. Michele researches and writes about the growing intersections between law, business, and legal innovation. Recently, Michele helped co-create and spearhead the development of the Digital Legal Exchange, a non-profit designed to inspire general counsel and their teams to become digital leaders in their businesses to drive commercial value. To date, in addition to many articles, she has published two books. Her book, Legal Upheaval: A Guide to Creativity, Collaboration, and Innovation in Law leverages more than 100 interviews with General Counsels at international corporations and Heads of Innovation at law firms. The other book, New Suits: Appetite for Disruption in the Legal World (co-curated with Dr. Guenther Dobrauz) includes chapters by experts in law, innovation, and technology to provide a global perspective on the future of our diverse legal service delivery ecosystem.

Michele has been invited to speak about her areas of expertise at a number of law conferences, leading law firms, and law schools including Linklaters, Holland & Knight, Dentons, McDermott, Arnold Porter Kaye Scholer, Proskauer Rose, White & Case, Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, IE Business School, University of St. Gallen, and Fordham. And she has also delivered keynotes to legal departments within corporations and legal organizations such as Microsoft, DXC, Thomson Reuters, Blackstone, Spotify, ABA, AALS, and NAFSA. Michele earned her BA (Sociology and English) magna cum laude from Dartmouth and her JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

Maria DiLorenzo is an experienced general counsel, executive, and trusted advisor to senior management and boards, with a proven record of leading legal teams and compliance functions in both public and private companies. She brings her pragmatic, collaborative style to tackling complex legal and regulatory issues and thrives on helping clients and teams improve productivity and reach goals through finding creative, yet balanced solutions. Always an optimist, she is currently in transition, looking forward to her next career adventure.

She most recently served as the SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for J.Crew Group, LLC for seven years, leading the legal and compliance functions during a time of transformation, including during its restructuring process and successful 2020 Chapter 11 reorganization.

Prior to leading the legal function at J.Crew she was VP, Deputy General Counsel and Chief Global Compliance Officer of Sears Holdings Corporation, where she held dual roles managing administration for its 150+ member law department; serving as lead counsel for a highly-regulated, multi-billion business division; and implementing an inaugural global compliance program, reporting to the Audit Committee of the Board. Over her sixteen years at Sears, she obtained vast experience across a wide array of subject matters, advancing through a series of promotions after starting as an entry-level attorney supporting the company’s credit business.

Before her move in-house, Maria began her career in private practice at two Chicago law firms handling commercial litigation, restructuring and bankruptcy matters, becoming a member of the Federal Trial bar within her first several years of practice.

Maria holds a BA from Seattle University, summa cum laude, and JD from the University of Illinois College of Law. She lives in the Chicago area and spends her time outside of work with her husband/high school sweetheart and four children, and enjoying nature and the great outdoors, weather permitting!

Suzanne Rich Folsom is an accomplished board member and results-oriented C-Suite leader with broad global experience and a successful track record of driving transformation at public and private companies of all sizes and across diverse industries, especially during periods of heightened regulatory attention and intense public scrutiny.

Ms. Folsom is known for her integrity, innovative thinking, crisis management leadership, and the critical ability to build consensus around challenging decisions. She is an internationally recognized corporate governance expert, who has created and implemented award-winning legal, regulatory, and compliance programs, which, as a result, have driven improved stability and reputations for myriad corporations. She is a unique lawyer-leader with direct P&L experience as well as operational responsibility accountability. Her expertise spans business strategy, enterprise risk management, mergers and acquisitions, SEC reporting, executive compensation, succession planning, trade, labor, cyber security, government affairs and global public policy, as well as environmental, safety, and social responsibility issues. Additionally, her leadership experience includes CEO and board transitions, and the deft handling of shareholder activists. Ms. Folsom has been recognized by The National Law Journal, as a cyber/privacy trailblazer for her strategic leadership in the aftermath of a cyber breach and bold partnership with the US government to combat the ongoing threat. Her commitment to diversity in the workplace directly translates into top performing diverse teams for which she has also been recognized.

Throughout her career, she has been a change agent and catalyst for organizational growth at multiple companies and organizations. Ms. Folsom currently serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, at Philip Morris International (and a key leader of the company’s continuing proactive transformation and progress toward a better, smoke-free future), a Fortune 100 company. She was previously the General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, and SVP-Government Affairs, at United States Steel Corporation. While there, she played a key leadership role in reinvigorating U.S. Steel’s business growth and was responsible for legal, regulatory and compliance, the corporate secretary function, environmental affairs, labor relations, security, aircraft, trade, global public policy, and joint ventures worldwide. Simultaneously, Ms. Folsom oversaw the operational performance of the company’s real estate division and was one of the primary architects of a successful international fair trade campaign for the steel industry. Ms. Folsom, who grew up in the military, proudly served as U.S. Steel’s executive sponsor of the Veterans’ Business Resource Group, dedicated to supporting the employment of veterans. Prior to joining U.S. Steel, Ms. Folsom helped drive the turnaround at ACADEMI, a private paramilitary security firm (and successor to Blackwater), post-scandal. She served as the EVP, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, and established an effective legal, regulatory and compliance framework to help the company recover from its legacy crises. Ms. Folsom also played an instrumental role in stabilizing the American International Group (AIG), a Fortune 100 company, during the global financial crisis. She was recruited as VP, Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer, and Deputy General Counsel, and helped establish a global governance system across AIG. Earlier, Ms. Folsom served as the Counselor to the President and Director of the Department of Institutional Integrity at the World Bank, where she was responsible for the multilateral organization’s anti-corruption program. She served under three Bank presidents during a period of unprecedented examination.

Importantly, Ms. Folsom’s career includes service as: Private Secretary to H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan; First Family Liaison to the U.S. Presidential Inaugural Committee; Special Assistant to First Lady Barbara Bush; Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. World Women’s Conference in Kenya; Chief of Staff to the Co-Chair of a national political party; and she has practiced law with three global law firms. She has worked across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North/South America, and lived around the world, enabling her to develop a global business, regulatory, and political network. A graduate of Duke University and Georgetown University Law Center (cum laude), Ms. Folsom has served on non-profit and for-profit boards. She is a former Director of the Advanced Metallurgical Group, a Dutch critical materials public company, and VELUXE, a Washington, DC-based e-commerce beauty and wellness start-up, which was sold in 2018.

A frequent lecturer and thought leadership contributor, Ms. Folsom is currently on the Advisory Board of EqualFuture, a FinTech start-up focused on innovative retirement solutions and on the Advisory Board of ClearForce, a technology start-up focused on combating insider threats.

Marlene M. Gordon builds and leads high performing teams across diverse businesses in growth, turnaround, and transformation scenarios. She establishes vision and strategic imperatives, focused on growth, game-changing opportunities, operational excellence, ethics and compliance, corporate governance, corporate culture, employee engagement and well-being.  Widely recognized as a caring, thoughtful, authentic and strategic leader with high work capacity, she constantly challenges the organization and her functions to improve performance and draws people in to help from multiple angles.

Currently, Marlene is the Chief Legal Officer and Secretary for Panera Brands, the parent company for Panera Bread, Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels.  Marlene is also the Chief Legal Officer for Panera Bread. 

Panera Brands is one of the largest fast casual restaurant platforms in the US operating 3,853 system-wide bakery-cafes at the end of fiscal 2021, anchored by Panera Bread, a pioneer and market leader in the fast casual restaurant sector. Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. brands compose the Emerging Brands segment. Caribou Coffee is a leading national coffee brand with a strong regional retail presence, and Einstein Bros. Brands, is a national breakfast concept with leadership in bagels.

Marlene is an officer of Panera Brands, Inc., and a member of the Executive Leadership Team for Panera Bread, reporting to the CEO of Panera Brands and Panera Bread.  Marlene leads the legal, ethics and compliance, government relations and enterprise risk management functions and oversees the Company’s corporate governance which includes advising the Board of Directors, supporting Board processes and oversight and monitoring governance practices.  Marlene is also Board member of the Panera Foundation, a public 501(c)(3) charity that through grant funding invests in underserved and at-risk children and youth and encourages them to become leaders through programs focused on mentorship, leadership and professional development, college readiness, workforce development and skills building.

Previously, as Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel and Secretary at Fresh Del Monte Produce, Inc., a $4 billion+ revenue publicly traded, global food and beverage company, Marlene was a member of Fresh Del Monte’s Global Leadership Team and acted as a catalyst for change in the company’s business trajectory by establishing and leading legal, communications and people strategies that supported the company’s short- and long-term business objectives.  From 2018-2022, Marlene was instrumental in the redesign and deployment of the company’s new vision, values, 5-year strategic objectives, global operational priorities and go to market plan. She spearheaded the establishment of the company’s Government Relations function, launched strategic imperatives globally to better defend and protect the company on key industry and business initiatives and led a global cross-functional team in the protection of the company in these critical areas.

Prior to Fresh Del Monte, Marlene was Vice President and General Counsel for Bacardi Limited, a $5 billion+ revenue global CPG company where she led the Legal Team in North America.  During her tenure at Bacardi, she supported the corporate growth strategy, developed and executed legal strategy for various major transactions, including a consolidation transaction that led to $10 million annual revenue growth, generation of a $30 million annual marketing fund, increased salesforce of 1,200 people, savings of $70 million and sale of assets valued at $25 million. She also led Bacardi’s Global Women-In-Leadership Initiative and (i) spearheaded the recruitment, advancement and retention of women in the company; (ii) developed strategic initiatives that embedded practices into day-to-day operations, sales, marketing and public relations programs to build brand affinity with women consumers; and (iii) led the development and execution of strategic external programs and partnerships to support women in the wine, spirits and hospitality industries, including leadership conferences with 400+ attendees, corporate sponsorships of $300,000+ and ticket sales of $100,000+ annually.

Prior to Bacardi, Marlene spent 14 years at Burger King Corporation, “The Home of the WHOPPER” and the second largest fast food hamburger chain, globally.  She established the legal function for Marketing and Intellectual Property across all regions (North America, Europe Middle East Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific) including brand protection. A versatile and results oriented leader, Marlene quickly and efficiently established the best-in-class Marketing and Intellectual Property Legal team at Burger King that successfully enabled the execution of unique and competitive marketing and PR initiatives and elevated the BURGER KING® brand with proprietary content recognized industry-wide for continual innovation and strategic risk-taking, to deliver significant business impact.  Through her leadership, Marlene’s team was continuously praised and recognized as strong strategic business partners, and this earned her industry-wide recognition and high praise from her colleagues at Burger King. Through her strong leadership and business partnering, Burger King increased comparable sales from 1.9 percent to 5.4 percent, drove consistent double-digit earnings-per-share growth from $0.85 to $1.59, improved average restaurant sales 30 percent and was recognized as “Advertiser of the Decade” by AdWeek.  Individually, Marlene was recognized by Burger King Corporation with its Crowning Achievement Award for leading initiatives that supported the Company’s business transformation plan. 

Marlene spent more than six years at Burger King Corporation where she built her reputation as a multi-faceted, trusted leader after which time, the company expanded her scope of responsibilities to lead the Global Operations, Supply & Distribution, and IT Legal team, in addition to the Marketing and Intellectual Property Legal team. She spent the next eight years enhancing the capabilities of her legal team within a winning culture to focus on adding significant value to the business by enhancing business operations while effectively maintaining legal and risk management policies.  As before, Marlene led her team with passion to collaborate, contribute and drive business transformation, growth acceleration and business turnaround to create shareholder and employee value.  As a result, her legal team had tremendous internal credibility and a permanent seat at the table.  A strong advocate for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in addition to her legal role, Marlene led Burger King Corporation’s Women In Leadership Program, an initiative aimed at developing the leadership potential of women in the company.

Prior to Burger King, Marlene was Senior Attorney for Republic Industries, Inc. and Blockbuster Entertainment Group, and was in private practice with a leading Florida law firm earlier in her career.

Marlene’s achievements are characterized by her ability to combine a strategic mindset with an analytical and hands-on approach focused on building high performing teams, being a strategic partner to the business and financial performance.  She believes in maximizing shareholder value through an emphasis on corporate governance, people development, customer orientation, diversification and business process optimization.  

Throughout her career, Marlene has received numerous honors and awards for her role as a leader, mentor, and work to empower and advance the professional growth and development of women and minorities and to give back to underserved communities.  She is also sought after as a speaker on leadership and women empowerment topics.

Marlene holds a BA in Economics with honors from the University of Chicago, JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and is a Harvard Business School Certified Organizational Leader.

Maria Green retired as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Ingersoll Rand plc (IR) on June 28, 2019.  She joined IR in November 2015 and was responsible for all legal and compliance activities worldwide. She joined Ingersoll Rand from Illinois Tool Works (ITW), where she was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary.

During her 18 years with ITW, Ms. Green guided the company’s expansion through both acquisitions and organic growth. As GC, she led the Environmental, Health and Safety Group as well as Government Affairs and Risk Management.

At Ingersoll Rand, Ms. Green was a member of the Executive Leadership Team and a trusted advisor to the CEO on legal, compliance and strategy issues and led a team of 75 lawyers based in the US, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.  She co-chaired the Global Business Integrity Council and served as executive sponsor for an employee resource group.

Ms. Green joined the board of Tennant Company (NYSE: TNC) as an independent director in March 2019 (Audit and Governance Committees) and was elected to the board of Wisconsin Energy Group (NYSE: WEC) in July 2019 (Audit and Governance Committees).  Most recently, Maria joined the board of directors of Littelfuse (a global manufacturer of leading technologies in circuit protection, power control and sensing) in February 2020 (Audit and Governance Committees).

Maria holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and JD from Boston University Law School.

Beth Henderson is Assistant General Counsel – Pro Bono Director at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington.  In this role, she manages the strategy, budget, and operations of Microsoft’s pro bono program on a full-time basis.  Her work includes developing and promoting diverse pro bono opportunities globally, overseeing the program’s internal and external communications, and leading projects to facilitate and optimize the practice of pro bono.  She also serves on the boards of Kids In Need of Defense and the Campaign for Equal Justice.  Before joining Microsoft, Ms. Henderson practiced immigration law in Philadelphia.

Eileen A. Kamerick consults and lectures on corporate governance and compliance matters. She is an NACD Board Leadership Fellow and holds the NACD Director Professionalism Certification. She was recognized by NACD as leading public company director when she was named to the Directorship 100 in 2022. She has served as CFO of such leading companies as BP Amoco Americas, Leo Burnett, Heidrick & Struggles, and Houlihan Lokey.

She began her career as a lawyer at an international law firm and she holds a JD and an MBA, with honors, in Finance and International Business from the University of Chicago. She is a member of the Board of Directors for Associated Banc-Corp, Hochschild Mining, plc, and 20 closed end Legg Mason mutual funds. She also serves on the Board of Directors for ACV Auctions, a Bain and Bessemer Ventures backed company which went public in 2021. She previously served as an Independent Trustee for AIG Funds. She also served on the Board of Directors for ServiceMaster and IRI before both companies were purchased by private equity firms. She qualifies as an SEC financial expert and chairs three audit committees and one corporate governance and sustainability committee.

Eileen Kamerick serves on the National Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Association where she chairs the investment subcommittee. She is a lecturer at University of Chicago Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and University of Iowa College of Law and for the NACD Battlefield to Boardroom board readiness program for flag officers as well as for the NACD Director Professionalism course. She recently served as a judge for the Investor Relations Magazine annual corporate governance awards and she will serve as a judge for their initial ESG integration awards in 2022.

Nancy Laben is the Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton. She leads the firm’s Legal Department and is responsible for the company’s legal work including corporate governance, securities, government contracts, employment law, cyber law, intellectual property, commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions and corporate investigations.

She is a member of Booz Allen’s leadership team and also has oversight for the firm’s marketing and communications, media relations, government relations, ethics and compliance and social impact. Ms. Laben is based at the firm’s Washington, DC office.

Elizabeth Lampert, President of ELPR, works with lawyers, law firms, and those in legal services industry to raise their profile and client base through public relations activities. 

​Ms. Lampert has lent her public relations and legal marketing acumen to some of the country's most profitable law firms and their business clients in a variety of practice areas, helping each to expand their client base and increase their public profiles in target markets.

​Ms. Lampert is a sought-after crisis communications strategist, having worked on some of the country's most high profile incidents.

Jennifer Prioleau serves on the Executive Leadership Team at B. Braun as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining B. Braun, Ms. Prioleau spent 12 years at HP Inc., where she served as Vice President, Associate General Counsel for HP’s Printing Business, Strategic Business Management and Cybersecurity. Prior to her time at HP, she served as Assistant General Counsel at Maidenform Brands and as an IP Associate at a Chicago-based firm.

Ms. Prioleau is a seasoned General Counsel with a successful career unleashing profitable growth by helping global businesses take smart risks, comply with the law, manage crises, avoid material losses, protect their reputation, and disrupt the status quo. She is laser focused on digital transformation and endeavors to rethink and reinvent ways to serve customer needs by leveraging technology and data to change processes, products/services, and business models-all while maintaining compliance and customer trust.

Ferlillia V. Roberson is a Chambers-ranked trial attorney who focuses her intellectual property practice on complex patent and trade secrets litigation in district court, the US International Trade Commission and proceedings before the US Patent Office. Ferlillia also advices counseling on all aspects of patent, trade secrets, and trademark related matters.

Ferlillia's patent litigation experience covers a broad range of technologies, including consumer goods, mobile communications devices, railroad car sets, data storage systems, advanced medical devices, pharmaceuticals, industrial and manufacturing equipment and processes, biochemistry, hazardous waste materials, heat exchangers, welding equipment, GPS navigation systems and automotive devices, among others.

Ferlillia has experience representing her clients in patent and trade secrets jury trials, ITC hearings inter partes reviews proceedings and before the Federal Circuit. Ferlillia has extensive trial and courtroom experience, including handling dozens of ITC cases and district court litigations.

Ama Romaine is the Global General Counsel of Real Estate Asset Management for Blackstone. Ms. Romaine is also involved in the implementation of various strategic initiatives across Real Estate’s portfolio companies.

Before joining Blackstone, Ms. Romaine served as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at G6 Hospitality, the parent company for the Motel 6 and Studio 6 brands.  Previously, Ms. Romaine was the General Counsel and Head of Risk Management at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and she held a number of positions with increasing responsibility in the hospitality industry, including as the Vice President and Senior Counsel for Brands at Hilton Worldwide.

Ms. Romaine received a BA (with honors) from York University and a JD, cum laude from Howard University School of Law.  Ms. Romaine also serves as the Chair of the Initiative: Advancing the Blue & Black Partnership, a non-profit organization that she co-founded to foster healthy communities for all.

Kathy Ruhland advises clients on cross-border transactions, including global M&A, restructuring and joint ventures, in established and emerging markets throughout the world.

Recognized by third parties for providing superior client service, Ms. Ruhland advises a number of world-leading corporations. Her recent work includes transactions in the Middle East and Europe, as well as India, Hong Kong and China.

Ms. Ruhland holds the following firm Leadership positions:

• Steering Committee, Global Alignment and Integration
• Co-Chair, Food and Beverage Sector
• Co-Chair, Global Leadership Alliance for Woman (LAW)
• Member of DLA Piper's governing Policy Committee

Ruhland advises privately and publicly held companies in the following areas:

Mergers, acquisitions and divestitures

Advises companies in various industries in global M&A transactions which often involve multiple jurisdictions. Effective in directing large teams of lawyers and accountants to assist clients in structuring, negotiating, implementing and closing global transactions.

Joint ventures and strategic alliances

Advises companies in negotiating, structuring, operating and exiting international equity joint venture arrangements, licensing, distribution and manufacturing agreements, collaborative marketing arrangements and other strategic alliances.

Pre-and Post-acquisition integration and restructurings

Advises companies on global post-acquisition integration and restructurings including significant experience in global supply chain structures, complex reorganizations involving multiple jurisdictions and other group restructurings.

Foreign direct investment

Advises companies regarding the international legal and tax aspects of the establishment of branch and subsidiary operations, setting up manufacturing operations, and advising clients regarding local investment incentives.

International compliance

Advises US multinationals on compliance issues under US laws affecting cross-border transactions including the Office of Foreign Control Sanctions Programs, anti-boycott legislation and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Global tax planning

Advises companies on international tax matters in connection with international transactions, reorganizations and other international tax planning matters.

Kathy Ruhland earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from William Mitchell College of Law, and her B.A., cum laude, from the University of St. Thomas.

Hillary A. Sale is an influential business leader and consultant as well as a recognized expert in financial services, ESG, securities, crisis management, compliance, corporate governance, strategy, and leadership.  She has been a member of the FINRA Board of Governors since 2016, where she Chairs the Regulatory Policy Committee and serves on the Executive, Nominating and Governance, Compensation, and Regulatory Operations Committees. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of Foundation Press, an educational publisher of scholarly books, is a faculty member with the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and speaks and works with boards across the country, and is a member the board of DirectWomen, a prestigious organization successfully increasing the presence of women on public company boards.  Ms. Sale is also the Chair of the DirectWomen Board Institute and serves on DirectWomen’s Executive and Nominating and Governance Committees.

Ms. Sale is the Associate Dean for Strategy, the Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law, and a Professor of Management at Georgetown University.  As an award-winning scholar and industry-focused academic, she writes and speaks about corporate governance, ESG, securities, compliance, strategy, and leadership.  In the spring of 2017, she was the Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, teaching Corporate Boards and Governance and Leadership.

She is an accomplished business partner who speaks to industry groups and academic audiences and was selected by the St. Louis Business Journal as a “2014 Most Influential Business Woman.” In addition to running governance and leadership programs, Ms. Sale consults regularly with CEOs, C-suite executives, and boards on governance, strategy, ESG, inclusion and diversity, company culture, and compliance.  She also works with business leaders in both custom executive education programs and programs at Harvard Law, where she Chairs the Women’s Leadership Initiative, and at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and the Law Center.

Ms. Sale graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and holds a master’s degree in Economics from Boston University, where she also completed her BA, summa cum laude.  Before joining the Georgetown faculty, she was the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and a Professor of Management at Washington University in St. Louis.  Prior to becoming a board director and industry-focused academic, Ms. Sale worked in the Government Investigations and Corporate and Securities Class Actions areas at an international law firm and in Massachusetts politics. 

Effie D. Silva has served as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer since 2022. In this role, Effie leads the company’s legal, ethics and compliance, risk management, food safety, government affairs, and corporate reporting functions. Effie D. Silva is an experienced public company leader who has a stellar track record advising the board of directors and senior management on a broad range of issues, including transactional, litigation, corporate governance, compliance, and DEI matters.  

Previously, she had a successful tenure as the Ethics and Compliance Leader for Cargill, Inc., a  $165 billion private global food and agriculture company.  As the most senior compliance officer at Cargill’s $50 billion Protein and Salt division, she advised the Board of Directors on major compliance matters and led a team that was responsible for identifying and mitigating risks and developing business-sensitive solutions to complex problems. Prior to joining Cargill, Ms. Silva was a Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), a $40 billion public food company. Ms. Silva was responsible for all legal matters impacting Tyson’s $10 billion Prepared Foods’ business unit and the enterprise-wide Sustainability department.

In addition to her in-house experience at Fresh Del Monte, Cargill, and Tyson Foods, Ms. Silva brings 20 years of complex business law practice at prominent global law firms, where she regularly advised corporate leaders and Boards of Directors of multinational companies on corporate governance, regulatory compliance and investigations, M&A, complex business litigation and international arbitration matters.

Effie is bilingual and has global experience across LATAM, APAC, and EMEA. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of International Arbitration (FCIArb) and a Qualified Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Conflict Prevention Resolution (CPR), and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). She is also Board Certified in International Litigation and Arbitration with the Florida Bar and has extensive cross-border experience advising and strategizing multi-jurisdictional disputes across venues, both nationally and internationally.

Effie earned her Juris Doctor degree in Law from University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she currently serves on the Board of Directors, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from Wellesley College.

Lynn Watkins-Asiyanbi is a native of Chicago and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she graduated with degrees in Chemical Engineering and Economics.  Upon graduation, she worked for General Mills in operations and later moved to Mars, Inc. in operations and later in logistics.  She returned to graduate school to pursue a Juris Doctorate and MBA at Northwestern University. 

Upon receiving her JD/MBA, she worked at Cargill in their Strategy and Business Development Leadership Program.  She left Cargill and moved to DLA Piper in their Corporate Finance group working on mostly transactions dealing with commercial finance and debt restructuring.  She moved to another international firm in their Corporate and Securities group, concentrating on multi-jurisdiction mergers and acquisitions, including cross-border joint ventures and the implementation of multi-country tax-driven, corporate restructuring projects.  Ms. Watkins-Asiyanbi transitioned to an in-house counsel role with US Foods, Inc. where she primarily focused on transactional related matters from a procurement, transportation logistics, and national sales perspective as well as managed the company’s intellectual property portfolio.  She was formerly Associate General Counsel at W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW) supporting the Global Supply Chain organization including global sourcing, product management, transportation logistics and international businesses that were North American and European based.  As Deputy General Counsel, Division General Counsel for the Liquid Foods Division and the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for John Bean Technologies Corporation (NYSE: JBT), headquartered in Chicago, she was responsible for all things legal in her division (which included 19 locations, including 10 non-US sites) and worked with her business partners on a variety of strategic matters.  She was responsible for supporting, on a corporate-wide basis, the HR-team and IR team.  She served as legal advisor to the Compensation Committee for the Board of Directors.  Currently, Ms. Watkins-Asiyanbi serves at Chief Administrative and Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary for CECO Environmental Corp. (NASDAQ: CECE), headquartered in Dallas.  She is responsible for the following functions on a global basis: human resources (including executive compensation and benefits), corporate communications, safety and legal.  She is actively involved in mergers and acquisitions and integration activities as well as governance and supports the board in her role as Corporate Secretary.

Ms. Watkins-Asiyanbi is also very involved in the Chicago community.  She received the 2017 Business Leader of Color award from Chicago United for her many contributions and this honor shows a readiness to serve on corporate boards.  She currently serves as the Board Chair for Women Employed, Inc., a member of the Education Committee for the John G. Shedd Aquarium, a member of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Alumni Advisory Board, and a member of the President’s Council for the Museum of Science and Industry. She has served on the board of directors for the former Girl Scouts of Chicago Council as well as a troop leader and volunteer.  She was an inaugural associate board member for the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms; a former board member for Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago and Illinois Chapter for the Alzheimer’s Association; and she has mentored several high school students through LINK Unlimited.  Ms. Watkins-Asiyanbi is also a 2016 Fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago and is an active member of Jack and Jill of America, Chicago Chapter and a life member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.

Despite her busy schedule, she still finds time to devote to her husband, Charles, and two sons, Nicholaus and Zachary.  Ultimately she lives by the motto, “Give a person a fish, they eat for today; teach a person to fish, they eat for a lifetime.”  She truly believes that a person is only limited when the doors of opportunity are closed to them; otherwise, they should aspire to conquer their dreams.