Disruptive workplace behavior cutting across diversity and inclusion efforts certainly took its toll during Covid. At the same time companies such as Coca-Cola and Starbucks made headlines by removing their legal leaders who made bold policy decisions with respect to diversity. And now both California laws aimed at increasing diversity in the boardroom have been struck down. It feels like the culture war rages from all angles. Please join Karen Seward, Global Co-Head of Litigation at Allen & Overy, for a discussion on how to navigate these issues in the current polarized environment.

Why are lawyers so unhappy—and what can we do about it, without completely reconfiguring our lives or abandoning our goals? Join Shayna Cook and Emma Ross, partners at high-stakes litigation boutique Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum in Chicago, for a discussion of insights into how happiness can be learned and applied. Drawing on recent research from cognitive science, Shayna and Emma will provide an evidence-based arsenal of tools that lawyers can apply in their own lives to improve their well-being.

Thank you to WISE Member Sarah Reynolds, Managing Partner at Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum for organizing this event!

Join Elizabeth Bachman as she shares her 30+ years of communication and leadership expertise.  Elizabeth will share her specific exercises and techniques for different situations that are aimed to position individuals to be noticed and respected at meetings, seen as valuable strategic thinkers who should be promoted, and recognized as leaders. 

Many thanks to WISE member Emily Jones at Osborne Clarke for organizing this event.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  Which strategies are working?  Which ones are not?  Recently, companies have made the news both for their recognition of how efforts to increase diversity and inclusion have sometimes failed and their attempts to find more effective tactics.  Join Deanna Kwong from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Anne Voigts from King & Spalding for a lively discussion of where we should go from here. 

Do you feel like you’re staring up at a glass ceiling, throwing rocks up at the sky? Does it feel impossible to be perceived as both likeable AND competent? Does it feel like you’re following someone else’s blueprint for what success looks like?

Riya Kuo was a corporate lawyer in tech for over a decade (Wilson Sonsini to Microsoft to a 2-year sabbatical wandering the world to Sony Pictures). Now she’s an executive coach to unconventional leaders –- who survive and thrive in environments not created or designed for them. Riya will be discussing the “double bind” of being nice vs. being competent, how to advocate for yourself with more ease, and what it means to succeed on your own terms.

We all learn and grow by witnessing each other’s struggles, and by supporting each other. During this event, you’ll have the opportunity to be coached live by Riya, and we’ll also break out into small groups to connect with each other. What are some specific challenges you’re currently facing, that you’d like to be coached around?  Bring them to the event and commit to being fully present for yourself as well as for your sisters.We will co-create a safe container to explore and uplift each other within.

Jessica Shpall Rosen, partner at employment law boutique firm Greenwald Doherty LLP, will facilitate an interactive discussion about making meaningful business connections while working remotely. Some of the topics we will discuss include:

·         How to stand out in the virtual world

·         Maximizing engagement when everyone has Zoom fatigue

·         Turning social media connections into real business connections

The pandemic has created many challenges for all of us, particularly working women, but if used strategically, digital platforms can streamline networking and expand our reach. During the meeting, we’ll apply some of these concepts in real-time, to amplify our own WISE network.

WISE members Amie Rooney (Marvell) and Anne Voigts (King & Spalding), along with Natasha Innocenti (Macrae, legal recruiting boutique) will present on challenges and opportunities during Covid-19, personal/work balance, making transitions and evaluating transitions through 2021, and share success stories.

Many thanks to Suhani Akhare for help organizing. 

The Connor Group, a professional services firm comprised of Big 4 accounting alums, will educate us on the fundamentals of financial statements, including how to read and understand balance sheets, income statements and statements of equity and identify key components therein.

Thanks to WISE members Brandee Diamond at DLA Piper and Heidi Mayon at Goodwin for their great work planning this event!

Katy Motiey, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Extreme Networks, shares her journey and insights on how thinking beyond the legal issues can advance both in-house counsel and outside counsel in their practice, and how her dual role has enhanced both her business and legal ingenuity.

Lilia Shirman of the Athena Alliance will kick us off and discuss her organization and the resources and services it provides with respect to women on boards.  Then Alexa King, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at FireEye and director at Vocera Communications will tell us about her journey as a female director and her work with Athena Alliance, following which we will open it up for discussion. 

Many thanks to Elizabeth McCarthy, Deputy General Counsel at Avaya, for hosting and Christina Pearson, Corporate Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop, for organizing.

Below please find some additional information about our speakers:

Athena Alliance

Athena Alliance is revolutionizing leadership, from senior management to the boardroom. We enable businesses to take on today’s greatest threats and to conquer their most pressing imperatives. And, we empower women to own their value and to step into their most ambitious leadership role yet: in the boardroom, in the C-suite, as a founder, or as an investor. At the heart of our mission: coaching remarkable senior women leaders to fully own their value and to step into bigger roles. We also guide CEOs, venture firms and corporations to evolve their approach to senior leadership development, to strengthen their boards, and to facilitate curated connections to remarkable female leaders. Learn more at www.AthenaAlliance.org.  

Lilia Shirman 

Lilia volunteers as the Athena Alliance Regional EVP for Silicon Valley and San Francisco.  During her 25 years leading and advising strategy, operations, marketing, and business development organizations,  Lilia Shirman has driven revenue growth at brand leaders including Applied Materials, BEA Systems, VMware, and Amazon, and helped innovative startups like MariaDB and Mindjet build enterprise value.  As CEO at The Shirman Group, she helps technology-enamored companies become more relevant to businesses and the humans who run them. As an angel investor and a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, Lilia has backed such success stories as ZineOne (Gartner’s 2018 Cool Vendor), and Cadenza, the leader in safer, more efficient energy storage.  Ms. Shirman is the author of 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue, and coaches entrepreneurs in Stanford University’s Global Entrepreneurial Marketing Program and around the world.

Alexa King

Heading up the FireEye legal, stock administration and privacy teams, Alexa is Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Before FireEye, Alexa was Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Aruba Networks, Inc., a provider of enterprise wireless networks. Her early career included working at Siebel Systems, and Fenwick & West. Alexa has served on the board of directors of Vocera Communications, Inc. since July 2016. Additionally, she served as founding director of Pathbrite, Inc. (formerly known as RippleSend, Inc.) from 2008 to 2009 and as advisor from 2009 to 2011. Alexa graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Eastern European Studies and received her J.D. from the UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was named to the Order of the Coif.

Alexa is a Pioneer Member of Athena. Pioneers are women who hold a board seat at a public company or multiple large private companies, and are a core part of the Athena community, providing mentoring and connections to our Aspiring Directors, and gaining access to a broad range of powerful connections and opportunities themselves. 

Karna Nisewaner, VP & AGC at Cadence, and Leslie Spencer, partner from Ropes & Gray, will lead us in a mini-hackathon exercise to help everyone think about solutions to the diversity and inclusion issues we all see and face. If you are new to hackathons, think of hacking as creative problem solving and a hackathon as an event where people come together to solve problems.  The focus of a hackathon is on practical solutions and concrete action.

We are all selling something. In order to be successful you need to have the right relationships on your side. Who is your captain and where are your crew mates? Can you name your number one ally at work? Do you know the short list of people who want you to succeed? This workshop outlines who should be in your network, how to identify them, and how to connect.

Please join us for this informative workshop led by Monica Phillips, a marketing and business development executive.

Please join us on September 13 in San Francisco for lunch and an inspiring and informative presentation on mindfulness, led by Jeena Cho.

Jeena Cho is the co-author The Anxious Lawyer, An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation(ABA). She is a regular contributor to Forbes, Bloomberg and Above the Law where she covers resilience, work/life integration, and wellness in the workplace. She regularly speaks on women’s issues, diversity, wellness, productivity, mindfulness, and meditation.

Karna Nisewaner, VP&AGC at Cadence, with help from Leslie Spencer, partner from Ropes & Gray, will lead us in a mini-hackathon exercise to help everyone think about solutions to the diversity and inclusion issues we all see and face. If you are new to hackathons, think of hacking as creative problem solving and a hackathon as an event where people come together to solve problems.  The focus of a hackathon is on practical solutions and concrete action.

Jennifer Miller, General Counsel of Loon at Google X, shares her insights on how in-house attorneys can position themselves to advance, how senior in-house attorneys and outside counsel can support that advancement, and lessons learned from her own path to general counsel.

WISE co-founder, Olga Mack, will lead us in a discussion on how to raise your profile in the community.

Please join us for lunch on Thursday, April 19 at SalesForce. WISE’s Shanti Ariker, SVP, General Counsel & Chief of Staff for Salesforce.org, will lead a discussion with SalesForce’s President, Legal and General Counsel Amy Weaver regarding various topics of interest and areas of insight.

When you walk into a room, you may look the part. Your business accomplishments may indicate that you’re an achiever. But the moment you begin to speak, your audience will be listening carefully to gauge if your voice and message is congruent with your appearance and resume. 

How we show up vocally leads people to definite and immediate conclusions about how we show up in the world.  How we say it is far more persuasive than what we say.

Your listeners decide in just seven seconds.

Simply put, there is a strong relationship between vocal acoustics and the psychology of perception: who we are as individuals, our personality, our strengths, what we bring to the table and also our weaknesses are unmasked in the voice. 

Hillary Wicht is a voice expert who has been tapped as a specialist by the Wall Street Journal and the Stanford Entrepreneurial Graduate Program for her work on the impact of gender communication styles in the corporate sector.  Her expertise incorporates the technical elements of voice and body language as it relates to the fundamentals of human psychology and neuroscience to help executives develop a voice and presence that maximizes their influence and drives results.

In this experiential workshop, she will unveil the ways in which individuals unknowingly undermine their authority, negatively impact their message, and negatively impact the way they are perceived through their communication styles. 

BIO:

Hillary Wicht is an executive voice coach that helps her clients develop their voice for leadership so they can step more fully into their power, influence, and impact through the vehicle of voice. She has been empowering voices in the board room, the court room, the pitch meeting, at the negotiations table, and on the stage giving her clients both the competence and confidence they need to have a voice and presence that creates success in their careers and lives.  

In addition to her private clients, Hillary is passionate about empowering women to stand in their value in powerful and effective ways. She is a partnering coach to the Athena Alliance, 2020 Women on Boards, and Broadrooms focused on placing more women onto executive boards. Hillary is an adjunct expert in the psychology of influential communication to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Program and has been tapped by the Wall Street Journal for her work on the impact of gender communication styles in the corporate realm.   

Hillary’s past experience as a performer in the studio and on the stage as both a session singer, actor and voice over artist bring a fun and rich foundation to her coaching practice. She has shared her voice with such diverse Grammy winners as American Idol winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, The X Factor winner Leona Lewis, Idina Menzel, Leonard Cohen, CeCe Winans and LL Cool J. She can be heard on commercials for McDonalds, Mattel, AT&T, Toyota, and beyond. She has performed on television and film sets, and stages small and large.  

Hillary combines her expertise in voice and performance with her background in Somatic Leadership Coaching and Psychology to deliver a comprehensive authority at what it means to have a voice and presence  that can authentically connect with others, move people to action, produce results, and create a legacy.

We are excited to hold the inaugural WISE SV Meeting! We’ll meet fellow participants, share the current WISE SV plan for the year, discuss the goals of each participant, and brainstorm other ways WISE SV can help each participant achieve those goals.

Suhani, Lisa, Karna, Christina (WISE SV Chapter Leaders)

Few things are more nuanced, complicated and squarely in the category of "art and science" than acquiring, training and retaining the best talent, and then getting that talent to consistently deliver great results to the client.  Seth Weissman, former EVP, General Counsel and Secretary of SolarCity is an experienced general counsel, VP of HR and senior executive. He was responsible for SolarCity’s legal, compliance and risk management functions (a combined group of 65 people) and led the Company's 2012 IPO.  Seth was also the Company's first VP of HR, building the function as the Company scaled from 200 to 1000 employees. He is passionate about building high performing, diverse teams with high EQ and a commitment to culture.  Seth will lead a discussion about the tools required to build a motivated, effective, and successful team.

This session will include a panel of representative from major legal publications such as the Recorder, Daily Journal, Association of Corporate Counsel along with insights for building a successful public profile from WISE co-founder, Olga Mack.

This session will focus on hearing the perspective of both emerging and established company General Counsel discussing how their perspective on providing client services shifted when they became the client, and openly sharing the things they wish they knew when they were still law firm partners. 

Linda Netsch,  a negotiation and conflict resolution lecturer at Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School and Haas School of Business will lead a session on how to use your individual strengths to achieve success, regardless of the styles of your counterparts.Successful negotiators, particularly in business and law, are often described as tough, aggressive, and confident. Unfortunately, women displaying these characteristics are often not viewed positively. This session will focus on the skills which are actually most effective in negotiations and how to use those skills for better results.

This session will focus on how to effectively manage and grow the relationship, from both the law firm and in-house lawyer's perspective.

This session will highlight how to develop and articulate your personal brand to thrive in your professional environment.  Law firm lawyers can apply this learning to improving their marketing or elevator pitch; in-house counsel can discuss how to ensure the brand of you and your legal department leads to productive relationships with your business client.  All members will work collaboratively to improve each other's brands.