Paula Boggs is the founder of Boggs Media, LLC, a business that manages her music, speaking, and other creative business activities. She is a Musician, Public Speaker, Writer, Lawyer and Philanthropist. She is also a Board Member of numerous for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Paula Boggs served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Law and Corporate Affairs at Starbucks Corporation from 2002 to 2012. Her prior professional experience includes serving as Vice President Legal for Products, Operations, and Information Technology at Dell Computer Corporation, and as a partner at the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP. She also had a 14-year career in public service, including as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and in various capacities as an attorney for the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Legal Counsel. She served eight years as a Regular Officer in the United States Army, earned Army Airborne wings and a Congressional appointment to the US Naval Academy – among America’s first women to do so.
Paula Boggs is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and earned a bachelor’s degree in International Studies (economics, energy policy) from Johns Hopkins University. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Law.
Since leaving Starbucks, Paula Boggs has volunteered for a presidential campaign, serves on for-profit and non-profit boards, raises money in support of causes she champions, gives speeches across the United States and beyond, writes music, coproduces albums for, and tours extensively with, Paula Boggs Band. In 2013, President Obama appointed her to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and in 2018 she received the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award.
Paula Boggs owns several U.S. Copyrights and is a Voting Member of The Recording Academy, Pacific Northwest Chapter.
As the recently retired Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Verizon Corporate Services Group, Inc., Michelle was responsible for primary legal oversight and support of the Chief Administration Office, which included Supply Chain and Vendor Management, Supplier Diversity, Global Real Estate, Sustainability, Aviation & Fleet Management. Michelle’s team also had responsibility for a variety of information technology, cyber security, intellectual property and financial services areas. Prior to this most recent appointment, Ms. Ifill was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Verizon’s Enterprise Solutions business unit. In this capacity, she was responsible for representing the legal and regulatory interests for Verizon’s $18 billion business unit which oversees all of Verizon’s wireless, wireline, IT and Cloud capabilities for enterprise and government customers globally.
Michelle is the founder of The Women’s Excellence Network (WEN) a professional business development and relationship-building organization. Relatedly, she has continued her practice of providing executive coaching and diversity & inclusion training through WE Consulting LLC. She and her husband are also entrepreneurs in the development and management of their Caribbean spa resort and conference venue, Villa La Maison Michelle, Barbados www.lammbarbadosvilla.com.
Michelle is a founder and former Co-Chair of the Verizon Legal Diversity & Inclusion Council, is the Governance Committee Chair and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for SUNY Purchase College Foundation and is a member of the Audit Committee of the Purchase College Housing Corporation. Active with the National Bar Association, Michelle is a Co-Chair of its annual General Counsel Invitational, as well as on the Advisory Board of the NBA 2025 GC Initiative. Passionate about preparing and empowering our next generation of leaders, Michelle is an Advisory Board Member of the Ron Brown Scholars Program, which focuses on providing mentoring and scholarship assistance to promising high school students of color.
Michelle received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and her law degree from Harvard Law School and lives in Westchester County, NY with her husband and teenage daughter.
The 2018 Charlotte E. Ray Award will be presented to Michele Coleman Mayes, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, at the MCCA Diversity Gala on October 3, 2018 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Michele Coleman Mayes is Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for the New York Public Library (NYPL). Ms. Mayes joined NYPL in August 2012 after serving as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Allstate Insurance Company since 2007. She served as a Senior Vice President and the General Counsel of Pitney Bowes Inc. from 2003 to 2007 and in several legal capacities at Colgate-Palmolive from 1992 to 2003. In 1982, Ms. Mayes entered the corporate sector as managing attorney of Burroughs Corporation. After Burroughs and Sperry Corporation merged, creating Unisys Corporation, she was appointed Staff Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Worldwide Litigation. From 1976 through 1982, she served in the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit and Brooklyn, eventually assuming the role of Chief of the Civil Division in Detroit. Ms. Mayes received a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.
Ms. Mayes served on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration from 2013-2014. She served as Chair of the Commission on Women in the Profession of the American Bar Association from 2014-2017. Effective in 2015, she was appointed as an Advisor to the ABA Business Law Section, and in that same year, became a Fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel. In August 2016, she was elected to the Board of Directors of Gogo Inc.
At Morgan Lewis, we appreciate that moving the needle on diversity requires purposeful effort, consistency, and communication. With more than 2,200 legal professionals working together across 30 offices on four continents, diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a core value embedded in our culture and the way we do business. From Firm Chair Jami McKeon to practice group leaders to office Managing Partners and members of the C-suite, Morgan Lewis leaders know that the selection of diverse partners to serve in senior leadership roles delivers the clearest possible message to all diverse lawyers that they have every opportunity for career development and advancement at Morgan Lewis.
Beginning with the creation of our D&I Committee (2003) and continuing with our first lawyer-of-color retreat (2006), through the appointment of our first woman Chair (2014), to the launch of ML Women and lawyer affinity networks for minorities, LGBT individuals, veterans, and returning-to-work associates (2015), to the roll-out of our Ramp Up and Remote Working programs (2016 and 2017), to achieving our Mansfield Certification (2018), Morgan Lewis’s philosophy is to “show, not tell” how we promote diversity and inclusion.
We celebrate diversity all year-long with events ranging from a Black History Month Q&A with partner Thurgood Marshall, Jr., son of the late US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, to a guided tour of the Art Museum of the Americas hosted by our Hispanic/Latino Lawyer Network, to an event supporting London’s Pride Parade hosted by our London office and LGBT legal network Out of America, to a Lunar New Year reception for Washington area law students hosted by our Asian-American/Asian Lawyer Network and Washington, DC recruiting committee. Finally, we have initiated a social media campaign, #WeAreMorganLewis, highlighting the unique experiences and viewpoints of our women and diverse lawyers.
Morgan Lewis recognizes the imperative to increase diversity in the pipeline leading to the legal profession and has made finding and nurturing diverse talent a top priority. Through the Morgan Lewis Foundation, we provide scholarships to diverse second- and third-year law students with excellent academics and serious financial need. With the launch of our innovative Mentor Circle pilot program and the introduction of a core competency model for associates, we are focused on providing our diverse talent with the tools necessary to succeed. At the partner level, we raise awareness of unconscious biases in the workplace through our mandatory Implicit Bias training program, while also developing programs that support an inclusive culture. Finally, we continually reinforce through words and actions that the path to success is wide open for our diverse lawyers.
We think this all adds up to doing some good in the world. But we also know this means better client service because diverse teams devise better solutions, and those solutions inform new innovations that deliver results. We are proud of the bold strides the firm has taken to elevate our diversity efforts in a way that wraps around our superior law practices and forms the fabric of a law firm that continually tops itself.
Orrick is a global law firm focused on serving the Technology, Energy & Infrastructure and Finance Sectors. Founded more than 150 years ago, we have offices in 25+ major markets worldwide today. We are especially focused on helping clients adapt to an economy increasingly driven by technology and innovation. Financial Times has selected our firm as the Most Innovative Law Firm in North America two years in a row. Fortune has named us to its list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For three years in a row. And we are honored to be the No. 4 firm on The American Lawyer’s 2018 A-List.
Orrick is well recognized for leadership in our efforts to improve diversity and inclusiveness. Vault ranks us as a top 5 firm for diversity, and we are the only firm on all four leading measures of the best firms for women: Working Mother magazine’s “Best Law Firms for Women” list, Yale Law Women’s Top 10 “Family Friendly Firms” and “Female Friendly Firms,” and the WILEF Gold Standard Certification. For the 12th consecutive year, we earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s annual Corporate Equality Index and Best Places to Work survey. We are honored to be recognized by leading corporate legal departments such as Chevron, JPMorgan, Microsoft, TIAA and Visa for our shared commitment to advancing diverse lawyers.
While the firm has had a Diversity and Inclusion Committee for nearly 30 years, it is the innovative approaches that we are taking today that we hope will accelerate progress. Our combined Board and Management Committee is 35% diverse, and we recently achieved Mansfield Certification Plus. The firm has named co-leaders to each of our major client relationships to create more opportunities for diverse and female lawyers. We created a commission of 20 junior partners – nearly two-thirds diverse and/or female – to advise our Board on long-term strategy, including inclusiveness. To respond to the values and needs of millennial associates, we offer in-house career coaching, an annual attorneys of color retreat, and a Chart Your Own Course program focused on career planning, coaching and support. We also offer one of the most flexible agile working and parental leave programs in the profession. The firm’s community efforts include the creation of the Bay Area Diversity Career Fair – now in its 15th year – and the Veterans’ Legal Career Fair, in its 4th year.
We hope that these and other efforts, combined with a fundamental commitment to listen to our people and our clients, will help change the face of our firm and our profession. Everyone on the Orrick team subscribes to what we call the McKee Doctrine (named for a former managing partner) – a commitment to leave our firm stronger than we found it. Nothing could be more consistent with that than our pledge that Orrick is diverse and inclusive.
Proskauer is an innovative law firm with 725+ lawyers serving clients from 13 offices located in financial and business centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The world’s leading organizations choose us to represent them in their most critical situations. But more, they consider Proskauer a strategic partner in driving their business forward. We represent asset managers, major sports leagues, Fortune 500 companies, entertainment industry legends and other industry-redefining organizations.
Diversity and inclusion are core values that are fundamentally intertwined in Proskauer’s history and culture. We understand that a diverse workforce enables us to offer the highest quality of service to our clients by affording them the benefits of unique perspectives and approaches to legal issues. At Proskauer, being diverse and inclusive goes beyond doing the right thing, it’s who we are.
William (“Bill”) McDavid is Freddie Mac’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Bill is a member of the company’s management committee and reports directly to CEO Don Layton.
In his role as principal legal counsel to Freddie Mac, Bill has oversight and management responsibility for all legal and regulatory strategies, services, and resources and corporate governance matters.
Bill’s legal career spans over 35 years, the majority being served in the banking and financial sector. Over the course of his career, he has overseen a full range of legal activities, including mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property matters, securities and disclosure issues, as well as bank regulatory matters.
Before coming to Freddie Mac, Bill was General Counsel for JP Morgan Chase, prior to its merger in 2004 with BankOne, and its predecessors going back to Chemical Bank starting in 1988. From 2004 to 2006, he was Co-General Counsel for JP Morgan Chase & Co.
He began his career as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, practicing corporate law from 1972 to 1981. And from 1981 to 1988 he practiced banking and financial law at Bankers Trust Company in New York and London, including two years in London as head of its European legal division.
Bill holds an A.B. degree from Columbia College and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is a member of the Executive Committee of Yale Law School Association and served for many years as a trustee, and as Chair of the board of trustees, of the French-American School of New York.
Freddie Mac makes home possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since our creation by Congress in 1970, we’ve made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. We are building a better housing finance system for homebuyers, renters, lenders, investors and taxpayers.
Learn more at FreddieMac.com
Julie Gruber is Executive Vice President, Global General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer of Gap Inc. In this role, Julie oversees a global network of both internal and external legal and compliance professionals who support the company’s long-term balanced growth strategy while protecting the company’s reputation and helping to mitigate legal risks. She is a member of the Senior Leadership Team, reporting directly to Art Peck, CEO of Gap Inc. and supports the company’s Board of Directors.
Julie also oversees the Gap Inc. Global Loss Prevention, Corporate Security and Corporate Administration teams. Julie works closely with these teams to help create a safe environment, helping to ensure the protection and preservation of the people, property, and information of Gap Inc.’s customers and approximately 135,000 employees worldwide. Julie is known for creating an environment that fosters integrity and respect for employees, customers, and business partners.
Since joining Gap Inc. in 1998, Julie’s experience and leadership scope grew to include Intellectual Property across all brands, and functional areas including Privacy, Records and Archives, Global Integrity, Regulatory Compliance, Real Estate, Commercial and Franchise Law.
Julie’s passion, drive and commitment to the company reaches beyond her role of General Counsel. She chairs the Global Integrity Committee and the Corporate Crisis Management Team and sits on the Diversity and Inclusion Council and the Business Continuity Planning Committee. Julie founded Gap Inc.’s Data Security and Privacy Council. Additionally, Julie helped to form the company’s Risk Committee and built the Legal department mentoring program.
Prior to joining Gap Inc., she was an associate at Bronson, Bronson and McKinnon in San Francisco and clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte in the Federal District Court in San Jose.
Julie is a graduate of the University of California’s Hastings College of Law and received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale University. She was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1992. Julie serves on the Board of LifeMoves – Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and on the Executive Committee for the American Heart Association’s Bay Area Go Red for Women Campaign.
Gap Inc. is a leading global retailer offering clothing, accessories, and personal care products for men, women, and children under the Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta brands. Fiscal year 2017 net sales were $15.9 billion. Gap Inc. products are available for purchase in more than 90 countries worldwide through company operated stores, franchise stores, and e-commerce sites.
For more information please visit www.gapinc.com.
Anne T. Madden is Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Honeywell.
She is responsible for managing all of the company’s legal affairs, as well as Government Relations and health, safety, environment, product stewardship, and sustainability.
Prior to taking this role in 2017, Anne was Honeywell’s Vice President, Corporate Development and Global Head of M&A, leading acquisition and divestiture activities for 16 years. During her tenure, Honeywell made around 100 acquisitions, representing approximately $15 billion in revenues and divested about 70 businesses, representing close to $9 billion of non-core revenues.
Anne joined AlliedSignal in June 1996 as General Counsel, Fluorine Products. Later that year she became Vice President and General Counsel of Specialty Chemicals, and then Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies, a strategic business group with responsibility for all legal affairs.
Prior to joining AlliedSignal, Anne was in private practice at Shearman & Sterling, focusing on M&A and corporate finance. She also worked at KPMG Peat Marwick in New York.
Anne received an A.B. in English and American literature from Brown University, an M.S. in accounting and MBA in finance from the NYU Stern School of Business, and a J.D. from the Fordham University School of Law, where she was Managing Editor of the Law Review.
Anne and Honeywell were honored by NJ LEEP, a college access and success program for high school students, with its 2018 Leadership in the Promotion of Diversity Award. Anne also received New Jersey Law Journal’s GC Impact Award in 2018.
In 2012, Anne accepted the NJ Biz “Best Fifty Women in Business” award and was named by Treasury and Risk Magazine as one of the Top Females in Finance.
Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable.
Mark Howard is executive vice president and chief legal officer of Nationwide. In this role, he leads the company’s legal, government relations, compliance, corporate citizenship, and corporate governance functions.
Prior to joining Nationwide in April 2016, Mark served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel for USAA where he was responsible for governance, government and industry relations, corporate regulatory legal matters and the enterprise’s compliance function. Over his twenty years at USAA, Mark served in a variety of insurance and financial services legal and compliance functions, as well as four years as the organization’s chief audit executive. Prior to his USAA tenure, he was an attorney with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Washington, D.C., as well as on the audit staff of Arthur Andersen in Dallas, Texas.
Mark earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Baylor University, and his juris doctor and master of business administration degrees from Southern Methodist University, where he was managing editor of the Southwestern Law Journal.
Mark currently serves as a member of the U.S.A. National Board of United Way Worldwide, the Ohio Insurance Institute Board of Directors, the Baylor University Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board, the operating board of The Buckeye Ranch, the National Association of Corporate Directors General Counsel Steering Committee, and the General Counsel 50.
Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance.
For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.
David L. Cohen (Honorary Gala Chair)
Senior Executive Vice President &
Chief Diversity Officer,
Comcast Corporation
Don H. Liu (Chair)
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal & Risk Officer,
Target Corporation
Stuart Alderoty
Executive Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
CIT Group, Inc.
Damien Atkins
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Secretary,
The Hershey Company
Anne Lee Benedict
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal Officer & Secretary,
Summit Materials, Inc.
Robert Bostrom
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
Abercombie & Fitch
Janice Brown
Founding Partner,
The Brown Law Group
Samantha Grant
Partner,
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP
Duane D. Holloway
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Secretary,
United States Steel Corporation
Ana Iacovetta
Vice President, Deputy General Counsel &
Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer,
VMware, Inc.
Ken Jew
Senior Vice President, General Counsel,
Ross Stores, Inc.
John W. Kuo
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
Natalie A. Pierce
Shareholder, Co-Chair, Robotics,
AI & Automation Industry Group,
Littler Mendelson P.C.
Thomas L. Sager
Partner,
Ballard Spahr LLP
Teena-Ann V. Sankoorikal
Partner,
Levine Lee LLP
Alan K. Tse
Global General Counsel &
Corporate Secretary,
Jones Lang LaSalle, IP Inc.
Richard Wallis
Vice President, Deputy General Counsel,
Office Product Group,
Microsoft Corporation
Benjamin Wilson
Chairman,
Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.
Michael Wu
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Secretary,
Carter’s | Oshkosh B’gosh
Dwight Yoo
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
2018 Charlotte E. Ray Honoree
Paula Boggs is the founder of Boggs Media, LLC, a business that manages her music, speaking, and other creative business activities. She is a Musician, Public Speaker, Writer, Lawyer and Philanthropist. She is also a Board Member of numerous for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Paula Boggs served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, Law and Corporate Affairs at Starbucks Corporation from 2002 to 2012. Her prior professional experience includes serving as Vice President Legal for Products, Operations, and Information Technology at Dell Computer Corporation, and as a partner at the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis, LLP. She also had a 14-year career in public service, including as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and in various capacities as an attorney for the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Legal Counsel. She served eight years as a Regular Officer in the United States Army, earned Army Airborne wings and a Congressional appointment to the US Naval Academy – among America’s first women to do so.
Paula Boggs is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and earned a bachelor’s degree in International Studies (economics, energy policy) from Johns Hopkins University. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Law.
Since leaving Starbucks, Paula Boggs has volunteered for a presidential campaign, serves on for-profit and non-profit boards, raises money in support of causes she champions, gives speeches across the United States and beyond, writes music, coproduces albums for, and tours extensively with, Paula Boggs Band. In 2013, President Obama appointed her to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and in 2018 she received the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award.
Paula Boggs owns several U.S. Copyrights and is a Voting Member of The Recording Academy, Pacific Northwest Chapter.
2018 EOC Award Regional Winners
William (“Bill”) McDavid is Freddie Mac’s Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Bill is a member of the company’s management committee and reports directly to CEO Don Layton.
In his role as principal legal counsel to Freddie Mac, Bill has oversight and management responsibility for all legal and regulatory strategies, services, and resources and corporate governance matters.
Bill’s legal career spans over 35 years, the majority being served in the banking and financial sector. Over the course of his career, he has overseen a full range of legal activities, including mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property matters, securities and disclosure issues, as well as bank regulatory matters.
Before coming to Freddie Mac, Bill was General Counsel for JP Morgan Chase, prior to its merger in 2004 with BankOne, and its predecessors going back to Chemical Bank starting in 1988. From 2004 to 2006, he was Co-General Counsel for JP Morgan Chase & Co.
He began his career as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, practicing corporate law from 1972 to 1981. And from 1981 to 1988 he practiced banking and financial law at Bankers Trust Company in New York and London, including two years in London as head of its European legal division.
Bill holds an A.B. degree from Columbia College and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is a member of the Executive Committee of Yale Law School Association and served for many years as a trustee, and as Chair of the board of trustees, of the French-American School of New York.
Freddie Mac makes home possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since our creation by Congress in 1970, we’ve made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. We are building a better housing finance system for homebuyers, renters, lenders, investors and taxpayers.
Learn more at FreddieMac.com
Julie Gruber is Executive Vice President, Global General Counsel, Corporate Secretary & Chief Compliance Officer of Gap Inc. In this role, Julie oversees a global network of both internal and external legal and compliance professionals who support the company’s long-term balanced growth strategy while protecting the company’s reputation and helping to mitigate legal risks. She is a member of the Senior Leadership Team, reporting directly to Art Peck, CEO of Gap Inc. and supports the company’s Board of Directors.
Julie also oversees the Gap Inc. Global Loss Prevention, Corporate Security and Corporate Administration teams. Julie works closely with these teams to help create a safe environment, helping to ensure the protection and preservation of the people, property, and information of Gap Inc.’s customers and approximately 135,000 employees worldwide. Julie is known for creating an environment that fosters integrity and respect for employees, customers, and business partners.
Since joining Gap Inc. in 1998, Julie’s experience and leadership scope grew to include Intellectual Property across all brands, and functional areas including Privacy, Records and Archives, Global Integrity, Regulatory Compliance, Real Estate, Commercial and Franchise Law.
Julie’s passion, drive and commitment to the company reaches beyond her role of General Counsel. She chairs the Global Integrity Committee and the Corporate Crisis Management Team and sits on the Diversity and Inclusion Council and the Business Continuity Planning Committee. Julie founded Gap Inc.’s Data Security and Privacy Council. Additionally, Julie helped to form the company’s Risk Committee and built the Legal department mentoring program.
Prior to joining Gap Inc., she was an associate at Bronson, Bronson and McKinnon in San Francisco and clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte in the Federal District Court in San Jose.
Julie is a graduate of the University of California’s Hastings College of Law and received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale University. She was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1992. Julie serves on the Board of LifeMoves – Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness and on the Executive Committee for the American Heart Association’s Bay Area Go Red for Women Campaign.
Gap Inc. is a leading global retailer offering clothing, accessories, and personal care products for men, women, and children under the Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta brands. Fiscal year 2017 net sales were $15.9 billion. Gap Inc. products are available for purchase in more than 90 countries worldwide through company operated stores, franchise stores, and e-commerce sites.
For more information please visit www.gapinc.com.
Anne T. Madden is Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Honeywell.
She is responsible for managing all of the company’s legal affairs, as well as Government Relations and health, safety, environment, product stewardship, and sustainability.
Prior to taking this role in 2017, Anne was Honeywell’s Vice President, Corporate Development and Global Head of M&A, leading acquisition and divestiture activities for 16 years. During her tenure, Honeywell made around 100 acquisitions, representing approximately $15 billion in revenues and divested about 70 businesses, representing close to $9 billion of non-core revenues.
Anne joined AlliedSignal in June 1996 as General Counsel, Fluorine Products. Later that year she became Vice President and General Counsel of Specialty Chemicals, and then Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Honeywell’s Performance Materials and Technologies, a strategic business group with responsibility for all legal affairs.
Prior to joining AlliedSignal, Anne was in private practice at Shearman & Sterling, focusing on M&A and corporate finance. She also worked at KPMG Peat Marwick in New York.
Anne received an A.B. in English and American literature from Brown University, an M.S. in accounting and MBA in finance from the NYU Stern School of Business, and a J.D. from the Fordham University School of Law, where she was Managing Editor of the Law Review.
Anne and Honeywell were honored by NJ LEEP, a college access and success program for high school students, with its 2018 Leadership in the Promotion of Diversity Award. Anne also received New Jersey Law Journal’s GC Impact Award in 2018.
In 2012, Anne accepted the NJ Biz “Best Fifty Women in Business” award and was named by Treasury and Risk Magazine as one of the Top Females in Finance.
Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable.
Mark Howard is executive vice president and chief legal officer of Nationwide. In this role, he leads the company’s legal, government relations, compliance, corporate citizenship, and corporate governance functions.
Prior to joining Nationwide in April 2016, Mark served as senior vice president and deputy general counsel for USAA where he was responsible for governance, government and industry relations, corporate regulatory legal matters and the enterprise’s compliance function. Over his twenty years at USAA, Mark served in a variety of insurance and financial services legal and compliance functions, as well as four years as the organization’s chief audit executive. Prior to his USAA tenure, he was an attorney with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Washington, D.C., as well as on the audit staff of Arthur Andersen in Dallas, Texas.
Mark earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Baylor University, and his juris doctor and master of business administration degrees from Southern Methodist University, where he was managing editor of the Southwestern Law Journal.
Mark currently serves as a member of the U.S.A. National Board of United Way Worldwide, the Ohio Insurance Institute Board of Directors, the Baylor University Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board, the operating board of The Buckeye Ranch, the National Association of Corporate Directors General Counsel Steering Committee, and the General Counsel 50.
Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance.
For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.
2018 Thomas L. Sager Award Finalists
At Morgan Lewis, we appreciate that moving the needle on diversity requires purposeful effort, consistency, and communication. With more than 2,200 legal professionals working together across 30 offices on four continents, diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a core value embedded in our culture and the way we do business. From Firm Chair Jami McKeon to practice group leaders to office Managing Partners and members of the C-suite, Morgan Lewis leaders know that the selection of diverse partners to serve in senior leadership roles delivers the clearest possible message to all diverse lawyers that they have every opportunity for career development and advancement at Morgan Lewis.
Beginning with the creation of our D&I Committee (2003) and continuing with our first lawyer-of-color retreat (2006), through the appointment of our first woman Chair (2014), to the launch of ML Women and lawyer affinity networks for minorities, LGBT individuals, veterans, and returning-to-work associates (2015), to the roll-out of our Ramp Up and Remote Working programs (2016 and 2017), to achieving our Mansfield Certification (2018), Morgan Lewis’s philosophy is to “show, not tell” how we promote diversity and inclusion.
We celebrate diversity all year-long with events ranging from a Black History Month Q&A with partner Thurgood Marshall, Jr., son of the late US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, to a guided tour of the Art Museum of the Americas hosted by our Hispanic/Latino Lawyer Network, to an event supporting London’s Pride Parade hosted by our London office and LGBT legal network Out of America, to a Lunar New Year reception for Washington area law students hosted by our Asian-American/Asian Lawyer Network and Washington, DC recruiting committee. Finally, we have initiated a social media campaign, #WeAreMorganLewis, highlighting the unique experiences and viewpoints of our women and diverse lawyers.
Morgan Lewis recognizes the imperative to increase diversity in the pipeline leading to the legal profession and has made finding and nurturing diverse talent a top priority. Through the Morgan Lewis Foundation, we provide scholarships to diverse second- and third-year law students with excellent academics and serious financial need. With the launch of our innovative Mentor Circle pilot program and the introduction of a core competency model for associates, we are focused on providing our diverse talent with the tools necessary to succeed. At the partner level, we raise awareness of unconscious biases in the workplace through our mandatory Implicit Bias training program, while also developing programs that support an inclusive culture. Finally, we continually reinforce through words and actions that the path to success is wide open for our diverse lawyers.
We think this all adds up to doing some good in the world. But we also know this means better client service because diverse teams devise better solutions, and those solutions inform new innovations that deliver results. We are proud of the bold strides the firm has taken to elevate our diversity efforts in a way that wraps around our superior law practices and forms the fabric of a law firm that continually tops itself.
Orrick is a global law firm focused on serving the Technology, Energy & Infrastructure and Finance Sectors. Founded more than 150 years ago, we have offices in 25+ major markets worldwide today. We are especially focused on helping clients adapt to an economy increasingly driven by technology and innovation. Financial Times has selected our firm as the Most Innovative Law Firm in North America two years in a row. Fortune has named us to its list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For three years in a row. And we are honored to be the No. 4 firm on The American Lawyer’s 2018 A-List.
Orrick is well recognized for leadership in our efforts to improve diversity and inclusiveness. Vault ranks us as a top 5 firm for diversity, and we are the only firm on all four leading measures of the best firms for women: Working Mother magazine’s “Best Law Firms for Women” list, Yale Law Women’s Top 10 “Family Friendly Firms” and “Female Friendly Firms,” and the WILEF Gold Standard Certification. For the 12th consecutive year, we earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s annual Corporate Equality Index and Best Places to Work survey. We are honored to be recognized by leading corporate legal departments such as Chevron, JPMorgan, Microsoft, TIAA and Visa for our shared commitment to advancing diverse lawyers.
While the firm has had a Diversity and Inclusion Committee for nearly 30 years, it is the innovative approaches that we are taking today that we hope will accelerate progress. Our combined Board and Management Committee is 35% diverse, and we recently achieved Mansfield Certification Plus. The firm has named co-leaders to each of our major client relationships to create more opportunities for diverse and female lawyers. We created a commission of 20 junior partners – nearly two-thirds diverse and/or female – to advise our Board on long-term strategy, including inclusiveness. To respond to the values and needs of millennial associates, we offer in-house career coaching, an annual attorneys of color retreat, and a Chart Your Own Course program focused on career planning, coaching and support. We also offer one of the most flexible agile working and parental leave programs in the profession. The firm’s community efforts include the creation of the Bay Area Diversity Career Fair – now in its 15th year – and the Veterans’ Legal Career Fair, in its 4th year.
We hope that these and other efforts, combined with a fundamental commitment to listen to our people and our clients, will help change the face of our firm and our profession. Everyone on the Orrick team subscribes to what we call the McKee Doctrine (named for a former managing partner) – a commitment to leave our firm stronger than we found it. Nothing could be more consistent with that than our pledge that Orrick is diverse and inclusive.
Proskauer is an innovative law firm with 725+ lawyers serving clients from 13 offices located in financial and business centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The world’s leading organizations choose us to represent them in their most critical situations. But more, they consider Proskauer a strategic partner in driving their business forward. We represent asset managers, major sports leagues, Fortune 500 companies, entertainment industry legends and other industry-redefining organizations.
Diversity and inclusion are core values that are fundamentally intertwined in Proskauer’s history and culture. We understand that a diverse workforce enables us to offer the highest quality of service to our clients by affording them the benefits of unique perspectives and approaches to legal issues. At Proskauer, being diverse and inclusive goes beyond doing the right thing, it’s who we are.
2018 Host Committee
David L. Cohen (Honorary Gala Chair)
Senior Executive Vice President &
Chief Diversity Officer,
Comcast Corporation
Don H. Liu (Chair)
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal & Risk Officer,
Target Corporation
Stuart Alderoty
Executive Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
CIT Group, Inc.
Damien Atkins
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Secretary,
The Hershey Company
Anne Lee Benedict
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal Officer & Secretary,
Summit Materials, Inc.
Robert Bostrom
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
Abercombie & Fitch
Janice Brown
Founding Partner,
The Brown Law Group
Samantha Grant
Partner,
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP
Duane D. Holloway
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Secretary,
United States Steel Corporation
Ana Iacovetta
Vice President, Deputy General Counsel &
Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer,
VMware, Inc.
Ken Jew
Senior Vice President, General Counsel,
Ross Stores, Inc.
John W. Kuo
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary,
Varian Medical Systems, Inc.
Natalie A. Pierce
Shareholder, Co-Chair, Robotics,
AI & Automation Industry Group,
Littler Mendelson P.C.
Thomas L. Sager
Partner,
Ballard Spahr LLP
Teena-Ann V. Sankoorikal
Partner,
Levine Lee LLP
Alan K. Tse
Global General Counsel &
Corporate Secretary,
Jones Lang LaSalle, IP Inc.
Richard Wallis
Vice President, Deputy General Counsel,
Office Product Group,
Microsoft Corporation
Benjamin Wilson
Chairman,
Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.
Michael Wu
Senior Vice President,
General Counsel & Secretary,
Carter’s | Oshkosh B’gosh
Dwight Yoo
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP