Podcasts

Wonder Woman in Business, Allison Nussbaum

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Allison Nussbaum

Allison Nussbaum's career is at the intersection of law, technology and client growth. She has spent 25 years in the legal industry holding leadership roles in sales, law firm business development and client success.  

With a strong foundation in sales honed at Xerox Corporation, she began her post-law school career at LexisNexis where she spent seven years as a consultant to law firms and eventually as the sales manager for New England region. In 2000, Allison joined Interface Software (InterAction). It was at this point that her interest in the intersection of legal tech and business development took root. It was during this time that she realized that she had spent the majority of her career providing advice to law firms without ever having worked in one, and decided that in order to expand her understanding of the business of law and the challenges faced by attorneys and professional staff, she needed to walk the walk, so in 2004, she made the transition from the corporate world and joined Goodwin Procter as the firm’s first Manager of Business Development. There, her primary objective was to build programs and processes designed to help develop lawyers' strategic planning and selling skills. During her tenure at Goodwin, she worked on teams that successfully implemented a CRM, developed a career portal, and designed and delivered business development training to associates and partners. Her seven years in law firms, which included a stint at Nixon Peabody, were formative and being a buyer forever changed her perspective on selling.

In 2011, she joined the tech start-up Manzama where she first served as East Coast Director of Sales before being tapped to develop and lead its Client Success organization. As Chief Client Officer, she led a team that achieved exceptional rates of client retention and satisfaction while the company grew from 25 clients in 2011 to over 170 in 2018. Her experience working in law firms were foremost in her mind as she and the team developed programs to help clients attain real value from the software. She and the Manzama leadership were committed to building a culture of client-centricity at the company. When she left there in 2018 to head up Customer Success at Kira Systems, she left behind a group of colleagues whose impact on her had been transformational. There, thanks to the support and encouragement of the co-founders, she feels she found her truest voice, and learned how to be her authentic self in both her personal and professional lives.

Allison is committed to helping the next generation of law firm business professionals and service providers, especially women, to grow in their careers and to find their authentic voices. She has been sponsored and mentored by some of the best in the industry, and she feels a strong responsibility to pay that forward. She believes that if we put people first, business success will follow.

When she is not working, Allison is a passionate traveler and takes a trip with her now 25-year old daughter every year. This past year, they visited Bali and the year before, Australia. She is a voracious reader, loves to cook and is a little bit addicted to Orangetheory Fitness workouts.  

Allison lives with her husband and two Labrador Retrievers in the beautiful state of New Hampshire.

"I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind learning."

-Amy Poehler

Allison Nussbaum

Connect with Allison:

LinkedIn: in/allison-nussbaum-856bb2/



Wonder Woman in Business, Christie Lawler

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Christie Lawler

Founder & Owner of CJL CONSULTiNG and Founder, The WITI Group

Christie J. Lawler – Founder & Owner of CJL CONSULTiNG and Founder, The WITI Group 

Christie founded CJL CONSULTiNG in 2009 while completing her MBA as a way to stay engaged in her career while completing her studies. As Founder & Owner of CJL CONSULTiNG, Christie supports clients by creating beverage marketing and training programs for the likes of Alamo Drafthouse, American Social, Arcis Golf and Flagship Restaurant Group. 

Prior to the rebrand of CJL CONSULTiNG in 2017, Christie was consulting with AREAS, Smokey Bones and Shula’s after spending seven years serving as the National Accounts Manager for both Sidney Frank Importing Company and Lavazza. After managing more than 200 accounts across the U.S., she was excited to bring her knowledge of the sales side full circle to help her company’s clients drive their beverage strategy forward. 

Before entering the world of sales, Christie worked as a newspaper reporter and went on to create the marketing office for MWR Europe covering Southern Germany while stationed overseas with her active-duty husband. Upon moving back to the U.S. in 2004, Christie got her first taste of national accounts beverage marketing while creating training and beverage programs for HMSHost, Consolidated Restaurant Operations, Outback Steakhouse and House of Blues. 

In 2018, Christie developed the charitable side of her career founding The WITI Group, a 501(c)(3) foundation focused on empowering and supporting the women of the hospitality industry. She is also proud to serve as a CORE Ambassador as well as an advisory board member for “The Bar” with Datassential. CJL CONSULTiNG is WBENC Certified as a Woman-Owned Small Business. Christie also travels the U.S. for her speaking engagements covering marketing, branding, sales strategy and cultural development topics.


The WITI Group is just over 50 female volunteers around the U.S. who are all at the top of their companies in national accounts on both the operator and supplier sides. The WITI Conference is the only invitation-only, female-only, exclusively non-profit conference in the hospitality industry. We come together for several days in the heart of Sonoma to empower each other, build friendships and raise money for CORE (Children of Restaurant Employees) and The WITI Group.

Christie Lawler

Connect with Christie:

Christie Lawler
Founder & Owner
CJL CONSULTiNG
w: cjlconsults.com
p: 832.693.9219
f: 832.201.5362

Follow on Facebook @cjlconsulting


FreemanMeansBusiness.com

FreemanMeansBusiness.com


Wonder Woman in Business, Ana Borich

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Ana Borich

Senior Program Manager - Change Management at ServiceNow

Ana Borich has dedicated her career to working on complex system implementation programs including organizational transformation, and her life to helping humanity transform effectively. For over 19 years, Ana served clients across IT, automotive and industrial equipment, retail, gaming and consumer goods industries. Ana now works as Strategic Initiatives’ Program & Change Senior Manager at a growing Bay Area company – ServiceNow. She is responsible for successful internal and external adoption of innovative software solutions such as the Digital Transformation application.

During times of transition from current to future states, Ana partners with leaders cross-functionally to drive the people side of business change, reduce program risks and manage resistance in order to achieve lasting change in an organization. She is known for her program leadership, successful planning and end to end execution of complex change efforts reaching global audiences of over 120K. She leads change journeys at all levels of the organization from executives, to developer, sales teams, and business partners to ensure products and services are successfully delivered to customers.

Having built her change expertise in consulting industry, received her Change Management Certification from Prosci, and more importantly having been through her weight-loss and lifestyle transformation (-70lbs), Ana truly lives change professionally and personally. 

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”

- Bruce Lee

Ana’s love for transformation is a recurring theme in her life and passions outside of work too. She has been trained in Meisner acting technique, acts and models as a hobby. She has been featured in the motion picture The ValleyWe did it for Love TV series, Chance TV Series, and done commercial and print work for companies such as LogitechCoolSculpting, Mac House Productions and Casa De Las Madres - shelter for women and children in San Francisco. She is particularly passionate about helping women achieve their professional and life goals. Ana’s motivational quotes about change, writing, and artistic work of her and her children, can be found on Instagram

Connect with Ana:

Ana Borich, Senior Program Manager - Change Management

Website: ServiceNow

Email: ana.borich@servicenow.com

Mobile: 310-809-1907

LinkedIn: in/ana-borich-4148565



Wonder Woman in Business, Jennifer Bankston

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Jennifer Bankston

President of Bankston Marketing Solutions

Jennifer S. Bankston has spent her career ACTIVATING IDEAS and elevating brands. With years of in-house experience at law firms, tech companies and start-ups, she has an innate ability for storytelling blended with a technology-driven, pragmatic approach for delivery.  On the technology front, she has conceptualized, developed and implemented applications and products for a multitude of business solutions.

Jennifer has served as Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer for three law firms, including an AmLaw 200 firm, where she led the building of creative and sophisticated service offerings for its clients. At Labaton Sucharow, Jennifer was a member of the leadership team that transformed an unknown law firm into a leading litigation boutique for global institutional investors and business clients in a highly competitive marketplace.  

Today, Jennifer partners with law firms and companies to provide marketing and business development strategies paired with technology solutions. She utilizes her storytelling mastery to activate ideas at all levels of the organization - from the executive level to sales teams, partners and marketers. Jennifer's vast exposure to global business and culture propagates an exciting, thoughtful, and intelligent perspective to client work. 

Jennifer Bankston, President

Connect with Jennifer:

Jennifer Bankston, President

Bankston Marketing Solutions

Activating Ideas | Aligning Brand, Content + Strategy

Website: www.bankstonmarketingsolutions.com

Email: bankstonmarketingsolutions@gmail.com

LinkedIn: in/jennbankston



Wonder Woman in Business & in Sleuthing, Rannah Gray

Rannah Gray

Rannah Gray Communications

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With raw honesty and unparalleled access, Familiar Evil tells the story of one man's international search for a child predator-how perseverance, courage, and the enduring belief in good over evil prove the power of one. Twenty years before this story begins, a hung jury in England allowed Scott Rogers, principal at a performing arts academy, to avoid prison on charges of sexual assault against a young student and quietly slip out of the country. Ethan, a successful businessman, husband, father, and former academy student, always knew the jury got it wrong. He knew his classmate had told the truth, and he knew Rogers would continue to abuse until somebody stopped him.

Rannah Gray is a Louisiana public relations consultant whose career highlights include two of her state’s favorite pastimes—politics and sports. Politics Magazine named her one of the Top 100 Influencers in Louisiana; and she was honored as Marketer of the Year and one of Baton Rouge’s Influential Women in Business by the Baton Rouge Business Report.

She previously served for 13 years as Associate Athletic Director at LSU, managing marketing, promotions, radio, television, and ticket sales for 20 college sports. Prior to that she was Undersecretary to the Louisiana Secretary of State. Rannah currently provides expertise in advertising and public relations to a broad base of clients. She is a graduate of LSU with a B.A. and a Master’s degree in Journalism.

Her first book, Familiar Evil, sent shock waves from Louisiana to London and follows the international search for TV personality that exposed his dark side as a child predator. Familiar Evil has won 13 national and international book awards, including eight Gold Medals for Best True Crime and Best New Nonfiction. It was the subject of the premiere episode of Lies That Bind, a 2019 primetime television series on the Investigation Discovery (ID) Network.

Rannah serves on a committee of experts for the National Center for Child Policy; and was a presenter at the 10th International Congress on Child Abuse held in Coventry, England in 2018. She conducted workshops on how dark side personalities use power, fear and deception to manipulate others at the 2018 Krimes Against Kids Conference held at Walt Disney World and the 2019 National Association of Social Workers Louisiana Conference.

Her second book, Case of the Missing Poodle, a junior mystery based in New Orleans, was written with her 9-year-old twin great nieces. Released in December 2018, it was named Best Chapter book by two national independent publisher awards and received the Silver medal for Best Children’s Mystery at the 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards.

Just a few of the remarkable accomplishments in Rannah’s robust career are as follows:

BOOK TALK ON LIES THAT BIND:  Mary Jane Marcantel, the paralegal involved in the Familiar Evil case and book, and Baton Rouge Police Captain Don Kelly (ret), who had such a strong negative feeling about Scott Rogers that he warned his Police Chief to stay away from him, joined me for a talk following the premiere of Lies That Bind, a true crime series on the Investigation Discovery Network at premiered with an episode on Familiar Evil.

Library Program: Have spoken throughout the country and in the UK on Familiar Evil, explaining how dark side personalities use power, fear and deception to manipulate people.

Women in Communications: Discussing how a child predator fled the UK, landed in Louisiana and reinvented himself as a popular television personality honored as a Model Foster Parent, Women in Communications learned how so-called “celebrity” spokespersons can damage an organization’s reputation.

BASPCAN – Presented the case study behind Familiar Evil at the 10th International Congress on Child Abuse, sponsored by the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAN) held in Coventry England in 2018.

LPB THE STATE WE’RE IN:  Interviewed on raising awareness on how to prevent child sex abuse.

Rannah Gray

Connect with Rannah:

Rannah Gray Communications

838 North Boulevard

Baton Rouge, LA 70802

Phone: 225.381.3036

Email: Rannah@rannahgray.com

LinkedIn: in/rannah-gray-1628954/



Wonder Woman in Business, Kimya Johnson

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Kimya Johnson

For over 25 years, Kimya S.P. Johnson has been a champion for her clients in a career that spans law, politics, education, and diversity & inclusion management. Kimya serves as Co-Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Practice at Ogletree Deakins, one of the nation’s largest labor and employment law firms.

Kimya supports a wide range of employers in their efforts to provide legally-compliant, effective, and organizationally-integrative diversity and inclusion plans. She represents clients by providing D&I-related compliance and risk-reduction services, D&I program assessment and implementation assistance, and D&I-integrated business strategy and leadership development opportunities.

Prior to joining Ogletree Deakins, Kimya served as the first Director of Diversity & Inclusion at an AmLaw 100 law firm and she also practiced law in the labor and employment group. In her diversity management role, Kimya led the firm’s efforts to recruit, develop, retain, promote and advance diverse attorneys across the firm’s 26 offices in the U.S., Europe and Canada.  Working closely with executive leadership and management across company functions, Kimya built systems, developed processes, and executed a host of programs designed to increase diversity within the firm and to promote its core value of inclusion.  As an employment lawyer, Kimya handled the myriad of employment and labor-related matters, including affirmative action/EEO law, employment discrimination claims, complaint reporting, procedures and investigations, downsizing processes, wage and hour disputes, and union/management relations at the state and federal levels.  She also provided human resource counseling, management/workforce training, human resource policy and handbook creation, and litigation defense to clients across a range of industries.

Kimya was recognized as a “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by The Legal Intelligencer, as a “PA Rising Star in Employment & Labor” by SuperLawyers Magazine, and as an “Influential Woman” by the NAACP, Philadelphia Chapter.  She also received the “MultiCultural Leadership Award” from the National Diversity Council.

Kimya has been directly engaged with a host of community, educational, political and social service endeavors for decades.  Before practicing law, Kimya was a public elementary school teacher in South Bronx, New York and received the Sallie Mae Excellence in Teaching Award. More recently, she served as Campaign Manager for a candidate for U.S. Congress who garnered more votes than any other primary challenger candidate in the state. Further, Kimya has first-hand experience with non-profit incorporation, management and governance through, among others, Dare to Imagine—an organization that began in her home in 2014 and has since grown to over 700 members with a campus in East Mount Airy, Philadelphia.  She currently serves on the boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence Region, Dare to Imagine Church, Inc., and Dare to Imagine Community Development Corporation.

Kimya Johnson