March 5, 2020
FLEXING TO LEAD
WOMENS SENIOR
COUNSEL BOOTCAMP
2ND ANNUAL
CONQUERING 2020
ABOUT THE BOOTCAMP
Shearman & Sterling is pleased to host the 2nd Annual Womens Senior Counsel Bootcamp. In keeping with this year’s theme of ‘Flexing to Lead’, we will explore a range of topics to help Assistant GCs and Deputy GCs take their careers to the next level.
We hope you can join us for a day filled with thoughtful discussions, exchange of ideas and networking with your peers.
For more information contact:
Bhavana Rana
Senior Manager, Business Development & Marketing
Shearman & Sterling
bhavana.rana@shearman.com
T+ 212.848.7099
Promoting gender diversity has always been a priority for us, leading to the establishment of several women-oriented initiatives over the years. We believe that investing in these initiatives fosters new and strengthened relationships with our colleagues, clients, alumni and other professional women. These ventures allow us to create an inclusive culture that offers a genuinely collaborative work environment.
The women-oriented initiatives we’ve launched provide opportunities for professional development and to build strong relationships internally as well as with the larger legal and business communities. Programs like WISER (the Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) offer our associates a network that works to hire and develop women lawyers, and—equally as important—retain them as they advance in their careers. Ultimately, our clients benefit from the way we approach their needs. Our inclusive teams provide broader perspectives that can offer unique ways of looking at the issues, which contributes to our goal of providing outstanding client solutions.
WOMEN’S INITIATIVES
AT THE FIRM
4:30 - 5:30 pm
Fireside Chat
Lilly Ledbetter and Donna Parisi
4:20 - 4:30 pm
Return to Shearman Room
3:30 - 4:20 pm
Breakout Session:
Getting to the Next
Step in your Career
2:15 - 3:20 pm
Sandra Bang and Theresa Amato
Equal Pay: Strategies
to Address the Gender
Pay Gap
2:00 - 2:15 pm
Networking Break
1:00 - 2:00 pm
Doreen Lilienfeld, Theresa Mohan, Sally Rocker
and Betty Whelchel
Getting to the Top Spot
11:45 - 1:00 pm
Networking Break
and Lunch
11:00 - 11:45 am
Preparing for the General Counsel Interview
Roya Behnia, Heather Fine and Victoria Reese
10:45 - 11:00 am
Networking Break
Top Issues in
the Boardroom
Clare O’Brien, Noreen Doyle, Victoria Silbey
and Pamela Strisofsky
9:45 - 10:45 am
David Beveridge and Donna Parisi
Opening Remarks
9:30 - 9:45 am
9:00 - 9:30 am
Registration
AGENDA
Pamela Strisofsky
Chairwoman, Adrica Technologies
Victoria Silbey
SVP, Secretary and Chief Legal Officer, Laureate Education
Victoria Reese
Partner, Heidrick & Struggles
Clare O’Brien
Partner, Shearman & Sterling
Doreen Lilienfeld
Partner, Shearman & Sterling
Heather Fine
Partner, Major Lindsey & Africa
Noreen Doyle
Chair, Newmont Mining
Corporation
Yen Chu
Chief Legal Officer,
Equinox Holdings
Roya Behnia
Former SVP, General Counsel,
Pall Corporation
Sandra Bang
Chief Diversity & Talent Strategy Officer, Shearman & Sterling
Theresa Amato
Counsel,
Shearman & Sterling
speakers
Donna Parisi
Click on thumbnail to view full bio
fireside chat speakers
5:30 - 7:00 pm
Cocktail Reception
Learn more about Shearman & Sterling’s Women’s Initiatives.
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Donna Parisi is the Global Head of Shearman & Sterling’s Finance Business Unit covering bank finance, leveraged lending, project finance, restructuring and insolvency, and structured products and derivatives. She is one of the firm’s Financial Services Industry leaders and also leads Shearman & Sterling’s FinTech Foundry and Shearman Women, the firm’s women’s initiative. Donna is committed to the advancement of women in the workplace.
Donna advises clients on the full range of derivatives, structured products, securitization, capital markets and commodities matters. In particular, she helps clients develop and structure new financial products and has extensive experience in the negotiation and documentation of OTC derivative transactions across all asset classes. She has broad and deep knowledge of financial institutions, regulatory requirements and the evolving business landscape.
Donna also spearheads the firm’s FinTech Foundry program, which supports the FinTech-related activities of our clients and the wider global FinTech ecosystem, including financial institutions, FinTech start-ups, accelerators and incubators, venture capital and private equity investors, and policymakers. In addition, Donna is a prominent thought leader and frequently serves as a moderator or panelist at events organized by the Financial Times, Glass Hammer, Thomson Reuters, FinTech Cocktail Club, WISER, and the Practising Law Institute, among others.
Full bio on shearman.com
Donna Parisi
Lilly Ledbetter
Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. case, worked tirelessly as a Supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama, for 19 years, and was often praised by Goodyear for her fine work. Toward the end of her career, however, she began to suspect that she wasn’t getting paid as much as her male counterparts. An anonymous note left in her mailbox confirmed her suspicions. Intent on facing the discrimination, she brought an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Complaint against Goodyear, and won.
Goodyear, however, appealed all the way up to
the Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 decision, the
Court sided with Goodyear. After the decision,
legal groups and Democrats took action and worked to introduce a bill. On January 29, 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was the first act of Congress signed by the new President Barack Obama.
A tireless advocate for fair pay, Lilly holds an Honorary Doctorate of Law from the CUNY School of Law and has been the recipient of countless national and international honoraria and awards. She is a featured speaker at colleges, universities, conferences, businesses, and political and women’s groups around the country. She has made frequent appearances on The Rachel Maddow Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, CBS This Morning with Gayle King and Charlie Rose, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, The Ed Schultz Show, The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert, and Politics Nation with Al Sharpton. A national champion in ballroom dancing, she waltzed with President Obama at the inaugural ball. Her life story, based on her book, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond, co-written with Lanier Scott Isom, is currently being made into a movie.
For 10 years, Lilly Ledbetter fought to close the gap between women’s and men’s wages, sparring with the Supreme Court, lobbying Capitol Hill in a historic discrimination case against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
Ledbetter won a jury verdict of more than $3 million after having filed a gender pay discrimination suit in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the lower court’s ruling. Despite her defeat Ledbetter continued her fight until the Supreme Court decision was nullified when President Obama, on January 29, 2009, signed into law the first new law of his administration: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Ledbetter will never receive restitution from Goodyear, but she said, "I'll be happy if the last thing they say about me
after I die is that I made a difference."
Hear more during the fireside chat with Lilly Ledbetter.
Theresa Amato has spent nearly three decades as a litigator, advisor, general counsel, counsel, of counsel, in-house counsel, or executive director in nonprofit, for profit and political entities. She has experience litigating at all levels of state and federal courts, testifying in front of public bodies, navigating regulatory agencies, and advising on or appearing in various international arbitration proceedings and enforcement disputes. Amato is licensed to practice law in New York, Illinois, and Washington, D.C. and she is committed to the advancement of women in the workplace.
Prior to joining Shearman in 2015, Theresa was elected to the American Law Institute (ALI) and the Chicago Economic Club; she was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence, adjunct professor, and member of the Board of Regents at Loyola University Chicago School of Law; she currently serves on the Advisory Boards of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies and the Consumer
Law Review.
Ms. Amato is the first woman in U.S. history to serve as the national campaign manager of two high-profile presidential campaigns outside of the two major parties; The New York Times profiled Theresa in 2000 in its Public Lives section, and she appears in the Sundance-selected documentary, “An Unreasonable Man” (2006), and “The Contenders” (2016), a series on the most influential presidential campaigns of the last 50 years. In 2009, The New Press (New York) published her book on voter choice and the difficulties faced by third parties and Independents. Amato was a Fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in 2002, and in 1999 she was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School.
Theresa graduated with honors from Harvard University and attended NYU School of Law as a Root-Tilden Scholar; she served on the editorial board of the New York University Law Review, and received the Orison S. Marden Medal for moot court and the Vanderbilt Medal. Amato clerked for the Honorable Robert W. Sweet in the Southern District of New York. After law school, she was a litigator at Public Citizen, and the director of its Freedom of Information Clearinghouse in Washington D.C.; in 1993, she founded the Citizen Advocacy Center in Illinois, and in 1997, at age 32, was named by The American Lawyer as one of “the 45 young lawyers under 45 … whose work is changing lives.”
Full bio on shearman.com
Theresa Amato
Noreen Doyle currently serves as Chair of Newmont's Board of Directors. She was the First Vice President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 2001 to 2005. Ms. Doyle also previously served as the Vice Chair and Lead Independent Director of the Board of Credit Suisse Group and has previously been a Board member of QinetiQ plc and Rexam PLC.
She is a former member of advisory panels for Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund and Macquarie Russia and CIS Infrastructure Fund and has served as the Chair of the Budapest Bank Supervisory Board. Ms. Doyle has been with Newmont since 2005 and previously served as Newmont’s independent Vice Chair of the Board
of Directors and the Chair of Newmont’s Audit Committee. She currently also serves as Chair of Newmont’s Nominating and Corporate
Governance Committee.
Noreen Doyle
Sandra Bang is the Chief Diversity & Talent Strategy Officer at the international law firm, Shearman & Sterling LLP, and leads the diversity and inclusion, professional development, legal recruitment, and partner and counsel services teams and initiatives. Originally from Canada, Sandra began her career in the legal industry as a litigation lawyer both in private law firms as well as in government.
Her passion for talent management and career coaching led her from practicing law to managing and developing lawyers, which she has been doing for over 17 years at several different law firms in Canada and the US. Sandra has shared her expertise and experiences by participating as a speaker and panelist at various conferences and panels hosted by, among others, the New York City Bar Association, the Professional Development Consortium, the Professional Development Institute, the Association for Legal Career Professionals, the Center for Talent Innovation and various law schools. Sandra is a certified executive coach, having completed the Advanced Coaching Intensive program at Columbia University. She has also served as the Vice-Chair and board member for Girls Write Now, a not-for-profit organization based in New York City.
Sandra Bang
Roya Behnia
Roya Behnia served as SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Pall Corporation, a NYSE-traded, Fortune 1000/S&P 500 company, until its acquisition by Danaher Corporation in September 2015. Pall makes complex filtration solutions for life sciences and industrial markets with operations and sales worldwide. A member of the senior executive team, Ms. Behnia led the legal, compliance, information security, internal audit and risk management functions. She also served as SVP of Rewards Network Inc., a public digital business/financial services company where she led the legal, compliance, human resources and risk management functions.
Previously, she was Group General Counsel of a $1 billion segment of SPX Corporation and a partner at Kirkland & Ellis. She has been a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School, a member of its Visiting Committee and has been writing for The ABA Journal on innovation in legal practice since 2011.
Yen D. Chu
Yen D. Chu is currently Chief Legal Officer of
Equinox Holdings, a luxury lifestyle fitness and wellness company with a portfolio of brands or business interests in Equinox, Equinox Hotels, SoulCycle, Blink Fitness, PURE Yoga, Precision Run, Furthermore (digital magazine), and Equinox Media (the newly announced multi-brand wellness and fitness digital platform). Prior to Equinox, Yen was Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel
of Ralph Lauren Corporation where she oversaw all public company and Board of Directors governance, global regulatory compliance matters, global corporate and licensing transactions, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropic matters.
Yen began her career at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP where she spent almost a decade focused on corporate and capital markets transactions, representing private equity firms, financial institutions, and companies. Yen is a graduate of Columbia Law School and is currently
a member of the Board of Directors of the
Columbia Law School Association. She earned
her undergraduate degree, summa cum laude
at the University of Minnesota.
Heather Fine
Heather Fine is a Partner in the In-House Practice Group at Major, Lindsey & Africa, and specializes in placing attorneys in corporate legal departments. Heather handles in-house searches ranging from corporate counsel positions to general counsel roles in a variety of industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, higher education, not-for-profit, consumer products, telecommunications, retail, technology, pharmaceuticals, professional services and financial services. Over the last several years, Heather has handled searches for public and private companies of all sizes (including several Fortune 500 companies). In addition, she has authored several articles related to the legal search field and also speaks regularly at various conferences and on panels on related subjects.
Prior to joining Major, Lindsey & Africa, Heather worked for several years at the Children's Law Center in Washington, D.C. representing children in the foster care system. She also served as counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Special Investigation into Hurricane Katrina. Heather began her legal career in a boutique firm in the D.C. metro area. She received her BA from Colby College and her JD from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law.
Doreen E. Lilienfeld
Doreen E. Lilienfeld is Global Head of the Governance & Advisory Group and the Team Leader of the Compensation, Governance and ERISA practice.
She focuses on a wide variety of compensation-related matters, including the design and implementation of retention and compensation plans, disclosure and regulatory compliance, and employment negotiations with senior executives. She has advised both U.S. and non-U.S. issuers on corporate governance and regulatory requirements relating to compensation and benefits matters and high profile individuals in their employment and severance negotiations.
Doreen has been a resident in the Frankfurt, London and Bay Area offices of Shearman & Sterling. For the past seventeen years, Doreen has spearheaded the publication of the Shearman & Sterling survey of the compensation-related corporate governance practices of the largest 100 domestic issuers. She is a lecturer in Executive Compensation at the Berkeley School of Law.
Doreen is the winner of the Euromoney Americas Women in Business Law Award for Best in Corporate Governance (2018) and was included in the “Notable Women in Law” list by Crain’s New York Business (2019). Her team was
awarded Benefits Team of the Year by Law360 in January 2020.
Full bio on shearman.com
Clare O’Brien
Clare O’Brien regularly advises major US and international clients on their public and private mergers and acquisition transactions, including public company restructurings, joint ventures and large public transactions. She also provides counsel on corporate law questions, including corporate governance matters. Ms. O’Brien has been consistently acknowledged as a leading M&A lawyer and has received a “Dealmaker of the Year” award by The American Lawyer.
Prior to joining Shearman & Sterling, Ms. O’Brien worked with the law firm of Brady & Tarpey, P.C., where her practice included cross-border corporate transactions, litigation and domestic relations. She began her legal career at the Irish law firm of Eugene F. Collins & Son.
Full bio on shearman.com
Victoria Reese
Victoria Reese is the Global Head of Heidrick & Struggles’ Legal, Risk, Compliance & Government Affairs Practice based in New York. She also serves as the Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion. Her recent placements include General Counsels, Compliance Officers, Corporate Secretaries, Governance Officers, other high-level Internal Legal Officers and related infrastructure positions. In addition to large financial institutions and corporations, Victoria has worked extensively with hedge funds and other investment management companies.
She regularly speaks at conferences and symposia regarding the legal and search industries and has published articles on leadership trends, diversity and inclusion, and the attraction and retention of top talent. Victoria is on the Board of Directors at The Play Company in New York, a not-for-profit theater and is also on the Board of Komera, a leadership program for young women in Rwanda.
Victoria Silbey
Victoria Silbey serves as Senior Vice President, Secretary, and Chief Legal Officer, a position she has held since September 2017. In this role, Ms. Silbey is responsible for all global legal affairs, corporate governance, and regulatory matters.
Ms. Silbey has more than 25 years of legal experience as well as expertise in business and technology. She spent nearly 20 years at SunGard Data Systems Inc., a global software and services company, where she was the Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President. Previously, she was an attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.
Ms. Silbey holds a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University as well as a Master of Philosophy degree from Oxford University.
Pamela Strisofsky
Pamela Strisofsky is an experienced business operator with more than 30 years of experience. She currently serves as an investment advisor and trustee to a few significant families including a large multi-generational family trust. For more than 15 years, Pam was a Managing Director and CFO of TL Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with $1.5 billion under management as well as CFO and Advisor to EnerTech Capital Partners (an energy-focused venture fund affiliated with TL with $500M under management). During her TL tenure she assisted in raising more than $1.2 billion of capital and administered the investment of more than $1.3 billion, which returned more than $1.5 billion to its investors, while concurrently provided advisory and back-office support for several unaffiliated private equity funds, including buyout, mezzanine and Korean funds. She continues to serve as a
confidant and trusted resource for several early-stage companies, periodically serving as the interim CFO/COO and/or representing investors on the board of directors. Presently, she serves as the Chairwoman for Ardica Technologies, Inc.
Pam holds a BS in Finance and International Business from the Ohio State University and is a CPA and a registered investment advisor. She is an advisor to Guardian Capital Partners, as well as emeritus board member Philadelphia Chapter of the Private Equity CFO Association, an organization she co-founded. Additionally, she serves on the board and finance committee of Philadelphia Health Partnership.
Lilly Ledbetter
Advocate, Author and
Public Speaker
Partner, Global Head of Finance, FinTech Foundry and
Shearman Women,
Shearman & Sterling
Lilly Ledbetter, Advocate, Author and Public Speaker
Donna Parisi, Partner, Shearman & Sterling
Betty Whelchel
Former U.S. Head of Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs, BNP Paribas
Sally Rocker
Sally Rocker has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services sector as both an investor and advisor. She is currently a Managing Director & General Counsel at J.C. Flowers & Co. and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. J.C. Flowers is a private equity firm dedicated to investing globally in the financial services industry. Founded in 1998, the firm has invested more than $15 billion of capital in 55 portfolio companies in 18 countries across a range of industry subsectors.
Prior to joining the firm in 2000, Sally practiced law in New York at Skadden, Arps, and O’Sullivan Graev & Karabell and in Palo Alto, California at Wilson Sonsini. Sally began her career in the business sector, working at Petro Lewis
Corporation as an Associate in the Strategic Planning and Treasury Departments.
Sally has served on a number of portfolio company boards, including eight years on the Supervisory Board of NIBC in the Netherlands. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors for AmeriLife Group Holdings and ELMC Group, LLC. She has also served on a number of nonprofit boards and is a frequent speaker on financial services topics. Sally received a BA from Brown University, an MBA from Yale University and a JD from Stanford University.
Betty A. Whelchel
Betty Whelchel is an attorney with over twenty-five years’ experience in leadership and general counsel roles at major global financial institutions. Her career has focused upon financial services and corporate governance, especially in the cross-border context.
Upon graduation from Harvard Law, Betty began her career at the U.S. Treasury Department as an attorney in the General Counsel’s Honors Program. She moved to Shearman & Sterling, where she worked in the firm’s New York and Tokyo offices; while in Tokyo, she was admitted to practice as a foreign law consultant. She then joined Deutsche Bank AG, where she served as deputy general counsel for the bank’s U.S. operations before becoming global general counsel for its world-wide asset management businesses. She joined BNP Paribas as U.S. general counsel for its wholesale operations and subsequently also become general counsel for its intermediate holding company. Before retiring from BNP Paribas last year, she took on the newly created role of U.S. head of public policy and regulatory affairs. In that capacity she built BNP Paribas’ first U.S. governmental relations and public policy team and oversaw the opening of its first Washington office.
Betty has been active in industry initiatives related to financial regulatory reform and corporate governance, with a particular focus on boards and the role of the general counsel. She co-chaired the subcommittee on the general counsel’s role for the Special Task Force of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on the Lawyer’s Role in Corporate Governance, set up after Enron and other financial accounting scandals. She was a member of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, the Institute of International Bankers Board of Trustees (Executive Committee, Chair of Legislative and Regulatory Committee) and other industry groups and has been the recipient of numerous industry awards including the 2015 Legal 500 Individual of the Year in Financial Services and the 2013 Burton “Legend in the Law” Award.
Today Betty is an member of the Burton Awards Honorary Board of Directors and co-chairs the Burton Awards Committee for Law Firm Leadership. She also is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She remains involved in activities supporting the advancement and education of women and is a member of the Women’s Forum of New York City.
Theresa Mohan
General Counsel & Secretary, REEF Technology
Theresa Mohan
Theresa Mohan is the General Counsel and Secretary at REEF Technology. REEF Technology is the largest parking network in North America, operating more than 4,800 parking facilities. REEF reimaging the use of parking facilities and is creating last-block mobility and logistical hubs that serve the needs of cities, businesses and consumers.
Previously, Ms. Mohan was the General Counsel Americas and Secretary of Exela Technologies, one of the largest global providers of transaction processing solutions and enterprise information management. Exela was formed in 2017 through the combination of two privately held companies, SourceHOV and Novitex Enterprise Solutions, where she was the General Counsel since 2015.
Prior to joining Novitex, Ms. Mohan served for 20 years in the legal department of IBM where she held several senior legal positions including Senior Regional Counsel from 2012-2015. Ms. Mohan began her legal career at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett. Ms. Mohan received a B.A. in Political Science from College of the Holy Cross and a J.D. from Fordham Law.
Sally Rocker
Managing Director & General Counsel at J.C. Flowers & Co.
Betty Whelchel
Former U.S. Head of Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs, BNP Paribas