NWLC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Vice President
- Vice President for Strategy and Policy
Angel Padilla serves as the Vice President for Strategy and Policy where he leads the strategic direction of the Law Center on federal and state advocacy. Prior to this, he was a political appointee in the Biden Administration, serving as Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant Secretary at the Administration for Children and Families at the Department of Health and Human Services (ACF/HHS) where he covered immigration-related issues. He was also a co-founder of Indivisible and served as its National Policy Director where he oversaw all of its federal and state advocacy efforts. He previously served as health policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center where he led the organization's advocacy efforts around immigrant access to federal health care programs. He also worked as Legislative Assistant to Congressman Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), advising on issues related to health care and the Affordable Care Act. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Senior Advisor to the Provost & Professor of Policy, Law & Women 's Studies, Brandeis University
Anita Hill grew up on a farm in Oklahoma, the youngest of 13 children. She graduated from Oklahoma State University and received her J.D. from Yale Law School. Starting her career in Washington, D.C., Hill worked in private practice as well as at the Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1989, Hill, was the first African American tenured at the University of Oklahoma, College of Law. Currently, she teaches courses on gender, race, policy and law at Brandeis University and serves as counsel to the law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Sellers and Toll, where she advises on class action discrimination cases. Professor Hill leads the Hollywood Commission working with entertainment industry companies and unions to eradicate harassment, discrimination and power abuse. She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations and has authored a variety of publications, offered television and radio commentary, and presented to hundreds of audiences around the globe.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Partner, Covington & Burling LLP
- Partner at Covington & Burling LLP
Clara Jihye Shin is a partner at Covington & Burling LLP and co-chair of the firm's Commercial Litigation Practice Group. Clients call on Clara in late stages of litigation to take matters to trial or reorient the strategic direction of a case. In the last few years, she obtained complete trial or arbitration wins valued at more than $2.5 billion, in each instance taking over from prior counsel and rebuilding the defense strategy.
Clara joined the National Women's Law Center immediately after college as an intern working on combat exclusion laws for women in the military. She subsequently helped to design and launch the AmeriCorps national service program under President Bill Clinton. Clara also served as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant in the White House Office of the Chief of Staff. Her international experiences include working for the United States Agency for International Development in South Africa, where she assisted in developing a privately funded, lease-to-own public housing program and authored bilateral country agreements to establish economic policy and human rights programs, and participating in the creation of Tahoe-Baikal Institute, a binational environmental institute in California and Siberia.
Clara earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she served as Editor of the Stanford Law Review and Articles Editor of the Environmental Law Journal. Clara was a law clerk to Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She received her B.A. from Smith College with departmental honors in Government and Psychobiopolitics.
Clara serves on the boards of the National Women's Law Center, People for the American Way, and the Rosenberg Foundation. She is a former board or commission member of the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, National Partnership for Women and Families, ACLU of Northern California, Asian Pacific Fund, Music National Service, One Justice, and United States District Court Northern District of California Historical Society.
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Crystal Coache, Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging leads the law center's work to foster an environment where people of all races, genders, abilities, nationalities, sexual orientations, sizes, and socioeconomic backgrounds, grow, belong, and thrive. Leading professional development and learning, employee wellness, and people data and research to drive improvements, Crystal collaborates across teams to ensure that the progressive policies, practices, and culture the law center advocates for externally are a reality for its internal staff.
Crystal has spent her career working in education, DEI, and HR, with an emphasis on talent acquisition & development. Prior to joining the law center, Crystal was Chief of Staff at Urban Teachers and supervised IT, Marketing and Communications, Talent, and DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Antiracism). Crystal was also a founding talent leader for vChief, head of talent and recruitment for an ed-tech company, head of recruitment for KIPP: NJ, and an independent consultant on education, DEI, and org culture.
Crystal holds a Master's degree in teaching from Johns Hopkins University, which she obtained as a high school teacher in Baltimore City through Teach for America. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and certificates from the Eagleton Institute of Politics and Institute for Women's Leadership.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Partner, Morrison Foerster
David Lopez joined Rutgers Law School as Co-Dean in August 2018 and was the longest-serving General Counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Dean Lopez was twice nominated to the position by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate. He most recently worked as a partner at Outten & Golden in Washington D.C. and is a nationally-recognized expert in Civil Rights and Employment Law. He earned his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Arizona State University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he has lectured.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Former CEO, Women 's Sports Foundation
- Executive Director of USTA Serves
For over 30 years, Deborah Slaner Larkin has focused her efforts to promote civil rights, women's leadership and gender equity throughout her hometown of Pelham as well as on the state and national levels.
Ms. Larkin was instrumental in creating Title IX information at the National Women's Law Center (NWLC). Considered an expert on Title IX, she has been an active board member with the MARGARET Fund (May All Resolve, Girls Achieve Real Equity Today), a non-profit effort that develops and supports programs that promote education about and compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. She was also actively involved in the NWLC ‘s landmark Supreme Court victories: Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which holds schools accountable for student to-student sexual harassment; Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education, which prohibits retaliation by schools against those who protest discrimination and a major pay equity victory when President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law.
During her impressive tenure on the White House Project Board, she co-authored The White House Project Report: Benchmarking Women's Leadership; while serving on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, she co-authored the landmark report, Physical Activity & Sport in the Lives of Girls: Physical & Mental Health Dimensions from an Interdisciplinary Approach. While executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, she directed multiple research reports focusing on the physical, psychological, sociological and academic benefits of sports for girls.
Currently, Ms. Larkin is Executive Director of USTA Serves, the U.S. Tennis Association's philanthropic and charitable initiative to support, monitor, and promote programs that enhance the lives of disadvantaged children through the integration of tennis and education.
As a resident of Pelham, Ms. Larkin was presented with the Thomas B. Fenlon Award in 2011 for distinguished volunteer service to education. This is a prestigious award only given during high school graduation by the Pelham Public Schools Board of Education.
Job Titles:
- President
- Board Secretary - Treasurer / President, AFL - CIO
Elizabeth H. (Liz) Shuler is president of the 60 unions and 12.5 million members of the AFL-CIO, and the first woman leader of America's labor movement. A visionary leader and longtime trade unionist, Shuler believes the labor movement is the single most powerful vehicle for progress and that unions are a central force in leading lasting societal transformations. She is committed to busting myths about labor, leveraging the labor movement's diversity for innovative approaches to social justice and making the benefits of a union voice on the job available to working people everywhere.
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Education and Workplace Justice
Emily Martin, Vice President for Education & Workplace Justice, oversees NWLC's advocacy, policy, and education efforts to ensure fair treatment and equal opportunity for women and girls at work and at school and to forward policy frameworks that allow them to achieve and succeed, with a particular focus on the obstacles that confront women and girls of color and women in low-wage jobs. Prior to joining NWLC, Ms. Martin served as Deputy Director of the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she spearheaded litigation, policy, and public education initiatives to advance the rights of women and girls, with a particular emphasis on the needs of low-income women and women of color. She also served as a law clerk for Senior Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge T.S. Ellis, III, of the Eastern District of Virginia; as Vice President and President of the Fair Housing Justice Center in New York City; and previously worked for NWLC as a recipient of the Georgetown Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship. Ms. Martin is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Yale Law School.
Ms. Goss Graves, who has served in numerous roles at NWLC for more than a decade, has spent her career fighting to advance opportunities for women and girls. She has a distinguished track record working across a broad set of issues central to women's lives, including income security, health and reproductive rights, education access, and workplace fairness. Ms. Goss Graves is among the co-founders of the TIME'S UP Legal Defense Fund.
Prior to becoming President, Ms. Goss Graves served as the Center's Senior Vice President for Program, where she led the organization's broad program agenda to advance progress and eliminate barriers in employment, education, health and reproductive rights and lift women and families out of poverty. Prior to that, as the Center's Vice President for Education and Employment, she led the Center's anti-discrimination initiatives, including work to promote equal pay, combat harassment and sexual assault at work and at school, and advance equal access to education programs, with a particular focus on outcomes for women and girls of color.
Ms. Goss Graves has authored many articles, including A Victory for Women's Health Advocates, National Law Journal (2016) and We Must Deal with K-12 Sexual Assault, National Law Journal (2015), and reports, including Unlocking Opportunity for African American Girls: A Call to Action for Educational Equity (2014), Reality Check: Seventeen Million Reasons Low-Wage Workers Need Strong Protections from Harassment (2014), and 50 Years and Counting: The Unfinished Business of Achieving Fair Pay (2013).
Ms. Goss Graves received her B.A. from UCLA in 1998 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001. She began her career as a litigator at the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP after clerking for the Honorable Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She currently serves as an advisor on the American Law Institute Project on Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct on Campus and was on the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace and a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow.
She is widely recognized for her effectiveness in the complex public policy arena at both the state and federal levels, regularly testifies before Congress and federal agencies, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and other public education forums. Ms. Goss Graves appears often in print and on air as a legal expert on issues core to women's lives, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, AP, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Follow Ms. Goss Graves on Twitter at @fgossgraves.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Dean and William S. Pattee Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Job Titles:
- Director of the Birnbaum Women 's Leadership Network
- Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women 's Law Center
Gretchen Borchelt is Vice President for Reproductive Rights and Health at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C. She oversees NWLC's advocacy, policy, litigation, and education strategies to promote reproductive rights and access to comprehensive, affordable health care, including abortion and birth control. Gretchen testifies before lawmakers, serves as a media spokesperson, regularly speaks at conferences and other public education forums, and has authored numerous pieces on reproductive rights and health.
Prior to becoming Vice President, Gretchen served as Senior Counsel and Director of State Reproductive Health Policy at NWLC. Before joining NWLC, she worked at Physicians for Human Rights and was a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Gretchen is a Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and serves on the Board of Directors of Plan A mobile clinics; the Advisory Committee of COMS Project; the Reproductive Health and Access Advisory Group of Urban Institute; and the Advocates Advisory Board of SiX's Reproductive Freedom Leadership Council.
Gretchen is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Lowenstein Fellow and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the University of Virginia, where she was an Echols Scholar.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Executive Vice President, Service Employees International Union
Heather Conroy was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU in 2016 after serving previously as executive director of SEIU Local 503 and as a Vice President on SEIU's International Executive Board. Conroy's approach to leadership is based in determination, collaboration and innovation.
Through both traditional and creative approaches to organizing, Conroy has helped to unite underpaid workers to win a better life for themselves and their families. Her leadership on "common good bargaining"-an innovative approach to collective bargaining that raises living standards for all Oregonians-garnered national interest and inspired hope for the future of collective bargaining during a time of hostility toward unions.
In 2012, her leadership and innovation resulted in 22,000 home care workers winning healthcare coverage by resourcefully leveraging the Affordable Care Act. These workers also became one of the first groups of home care workers in the nation to secure a path to $15 an hour in their contract.
Conroy's dedication to improving the lives of working people by raising wages, creating better working conditions and quality affordable healthcare has helped to grow union membership. Under her leadership, SEIU Local 503 in Oregon has grown to more than 55,000 state, university, local government and non-profit workers as well as publicly funded care providers and nursing home workers. Conroy was also a leader in the creation of Oregon's Fair Shot Coalition that helped to raise wages for over 100,000 minimum-wage workers and extend paid sick leave to all Oregon workers and continues to push the legislature to address and correct Oregon's profiling issues.
Conroy's motivation to work in labor could be attributed to her early life in Pittsburgh when her father and uncles were all members of Asbestos Workers Local 2, however, it wasn't until she realized pursuing a business degree wasn't a great fit and Conroy met Frieda Rozen, a labor studies professor that she found her passion and graduated with a degree in labor & industrial relations from Pennsylvania State University. In 1997, Conroy began working with SEIU Local 503 organizing private nonprofit workers and public employees. In 2010, she was elected executive director of the local.
In addition to helping to bring justice and worker rights to the forefront, as a single mother Conroy is raising her 16 year old daughter.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Principal, Sherburne PLLC
- Principal of Sherburne PLLC
Jane Sherburne is Principal of Sherburne PLLC, a legal consulting firm providing strategic advice in crisis environments and in connection with regulatory policy developments. Over the past 14 years, Ms. Sherburne has served as General Counsel to financial institutions (BNY Mellon, Wachovia and Citi Global Consumer Group), managing large legal departments and acting as the primary legal and government relations advisor to Boards and Senior Management.
Jane practiced law as a litigation partner at the Washington D.C. law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, joining the firm in 1984. Her practice focused on representing clients in matters requiring crisis management, including media relations and matters involving Congressional investigations and internal government and corporate investigations. Ms. Sherburne interrupted her private law practice from 1994 to 1997 to serve as Special Counsel to the President in the Clinton White House, managing the response to ethics investigations of the President and Mrs. Clinton by Congress and the Independent Counsel.
She is a member of the Boards of Directors of Teledyne Technologies, Inc. and HSBC North America Holdings. She is a member of the Committee for Economic Development and Co-Chair of its Money & Politics Subcommittee, and a Member of the American Law Institute. Ms. Sherburne also serves on the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, to which she was appointed by President Obama in July 2010. She is also a member of the Perella Weinberg Partners Advisory Board.
She received her B.A. and M.S.W. from the University of Minnesota and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Research
- Vice President for Research at the National Women 's Law Center
Jasmine Tucker is Vice President for Research at the National Women's Law Center, where she oversees qualitative and quantitative research projects on a range of issues facing women throughout their lives. She has written extensively about women and the economy, the wage gap, Social Security, and more. Prior to this role, Jasmine was Director of Research at the Law Center and was formerly a research fellow. Jasmine was also previously Senior Research Analyst at the National Priorities Project where her research centered on federal spending, tax policy, defense spending, and social insurance and where she led train-the-trainer style workshops for community organizers around the country on the federal budget. Prior to that, she was Senior Policy Analyst for Income Security at the National Academy of Social Insurance and was lead author of the groundbreaking public opinion study, Strengthening Social Security: What Do Americans Want? She holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration from the George Washington University with a focus on poverty and social policy, is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and is a proud AmeriCorps alum.
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Development
Jodi Michael, Vice President for Development, leads the full range of NWLC's fundraising activities, including major individual gifts, the annual fund, corporate philanthropy, foundation program and capacity-building support, and special events. She previously served as NWLC's Director of Foundation Relations, supervising the Development Team's foundation fundraising across all of program areas. Before joining NWLC she worked as an attorney at NARAL Pro-Choice America for eight years, first as a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow and most recently as the Director of NARAL's Proactive Policy Institute, where she led the organization's development of pro-choice policies and strategies, with an emphasis on state policy advocacy. She holds a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor's degree from Dickinson College.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Executive Vice President & Chief Legal and Administrative Officer, Visa
- Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of Visa
- Law School Advisory Council
Kelly Mahon Tullier is the Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of Visa. In her role, Mahon Tullier oversees the legal and compliance functions of the company, as well as the global communication function and corporate services functions, comprising corporate real estate, aviation, security and global events.
During her tenure at Visa, Mahon Tullier has led the Legal and Compliance function for the company, transforming that organization into a very high functioning team. She was a key negotiator of Visa's $23 billion acquisition of Visa Europe, and has led the company through a variety of complex legal, regulatory and compliance matters globally. In 2020, she took on additional responsibilities as interim lead of Visa's HR function, providing strong leadership to the function and the Company through significant challenges arising due to the global pandemic and social justice movements across the United States.
Prior to joining Visa, Mahon Tullier worked at PepsiCo, Inc. as Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. She also served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for PepsiCo's Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa division, based in Dubai.
Previously, Mahon Tullier was Vice President and General Counsel for Frito-Lay, Inc. Earlier in her career, she was an Associate at BakerBotts LLP and also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Sidney A. Fitzwater, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas.
Mahon Tullier serves on the Cornell Law School Advisory Council, the Corporate Advisory Committee of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, and on the board of directors of the National Women's Law Center (NWLC). She has also previously served as a director on the boards of the Tahirih Justice Center and International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR).
Mahon Tullier received her bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University and her juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from Cornell Law School.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Partner, WilmerHale
Job Titles:
- Board Member / General Counsel, Lyft
- General Counsel and Secretary for Lyft
Kristin Sverchek is the general counsel and secretary for Lyft. She has held the role of general counsel since 2012 and secretary since 2015. Svercheck is the ridesharing company's first in-house lawyer.
Prior to Lyft, Sverchek was a partner at Silicon Legal Strategy, P.C. Previously, she was an associate at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP.
She currently volunteers and serves as a board member for Reading Partners, and she also serves on the board of the National Women's Law Center.
Sverchek earned her bachelor's degree in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and she earned her juris doctorate from UC, Hastings College of Law.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / President and CEO, Southern Poverty Law Center
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Founder & CEO, Phenomenal
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Income Security and Child Care / Early Learning
Melissa Boteach, Vice President for Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning, oversees NWLC's advocacy, policy, and public education strategies to ensure that all women and families have the income and supports they need to thrive. Prior to joining NWLC, Melissa spent nearly a decade at Center for American Progress (CAP), where she founded and led the Poverty to Prosperity Program, growing it from a team of 1 to 17, establishing projects to center the voices of low-income families; leading the team's message and narrative change work, overseeing intersectional advocacy campaigns, and developing bold ideas to cut poverty & expand opportunity that resulted in new legislation, executive actions, and other progress. Melissa also served as policy editor on The Shriver Report, a book and multimedia platform by Maria Shriver and Center for American Progress on the 1 in 3 U.S. women on the financial brink, and solutions to help them push back. Previously, she worked at The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), where she led interfaith antipoverty campaigns. She has testified before Congress and frequently serves as a media spokesperson on issues relating to economic opportunity. A Harry Truman and George J. Mitchell Scholar, Melissa has a Master's of Public Policy from The George Washington University, a master's of Equality Studies from University College Dublin where she studied women in social movements, and bachelor's degrees from University of Maryland in government and Spanish.
Melissa Murray is a Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law and Faculty Director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Network. Previously, Murray was the Alexander F. And May T. Morrison Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She teaches courses on family law, constitutional law, criminal law, reproductive rights and justice, and feminist legal theory. Her research considers the legal regulation of sex and intimacy, including issues involving marriage and its alternatives, caregiving, and reproductive rights and justice. She is a co-author of "Cases and Materials on Reproductive Rights and Justice," the first reproductive rights and justice casebook. A member of the American Law Institute, Murray is also a member of the boards of the American Constitution Society, the Guttmacher Institute, and the Brennan Center.
Murray received her J.D. from Yale Law School and was a NAACP-LDF/Shearman & Sterling Scholar. She received her B.A. in history and American Studies with distinction from the University of Virginia. She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Hon. Stefan R. Underhill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Partner, Morrison Foerster
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Founder & President, Justice for Migrant Women
Mónica Ramírez is an activist, author, civil rights attorney, social entrepreneur and speaker. She has been specifically engaged in direct service and advocacy on behalf of farmworkers, Latinas and immigrant women.
Mónica employs a holistic, victim-centered approach to her work and she is an ardent supporter of worker-led movements. She also has a long history of promoting women's leadership and political power.
Monica Ramirez was born to a family of migrant farmworkers in Fremont, Ohio. Ramirez graduated from Loyola University of Chicago in 1999, then proceeded to The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law for her Doctor of Law. In 2014, Monica joined Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and earned a Masters in Public Administration.
While at Harvard, Ramirez became involved in many activities and societies, including the HKS Fund (Class Gift Co-Chair), the Race and Public Policy Committee Student Search Team, the Non-Governmental Organization and Non-Profit Organizations PIC (Communications Officer), Harvard's 1st National Farmworker Awareness Week (Committee Chair), Harvard's 18th Latino Policy Law and Business Conference (Steering Committee Member), Harvard Latinx Graduation Ceremony (Planning Committee Member), and the HKS Latino Caucus (Member).
Nancy Withbroe, Chief of Staff, leads the Office of the President & CEO, guiding efforts to build and enhance the President & CEO's external positioning and the strategic use of her time in service of the Law Center's mission and priorities, and staffing the Boards of NWLC and its affiliates, the NWLC Action Fund and the National Women's Law Center Fund LLC. Through leading a consistent organization-wide approach to planning, learning, execution and assessment, Ms. Withbroe will guide staff in defining and tracking metrics and setting the organization-wide learning agenda.
From 2017 through early 2023 Ms. Withbroe also served as NWLC's Chief Operating Officer, providing strong day-to-day leadership for the staff, leading labor relations including negotiating the organization's first collective bargaining agreement with its staff union NWLC United, and steering performance management to ensure alignment with NWLC's strategic plan and organizational effectiveness goals. She previously served as NWLC's Vice President for Development and Strategy, leading efforts to substantially increase and diversify funding and facilitating a comprehensive strategic planning process with the Board and Co-Presidents. She has held a range of other staff and consulting roles with leading national and regional nonprofits, focusing on fundraising, organizational development, strategic planning, and board relations.
Ms. Withbroe has a master's degree in educational leadership from American University and a bachelor's degree from Carleton College. She serves as Board Co-Chair for ProInspire, a nonprofit that activates leaders at all levels to accelerate equity. She is the founder and convener of an informal network of social justice movement leaders who hold a broad set of responsibilities at the intersection of organizational culture, operations, governance, change management, and strategy.
Job Titles:
- General Counsel
- Vice President
- Vice President, General Counsel and Senior Advisor of Education
Neena Chaudhry, Vice President, General Counsel, and Senior Advisor for Education, provides in-house legal advice and representation to NWLC, NWLC Action Fund, and NWLC Fund LLC. She also works to protect the rights of women and girls to be free from sex discrimination in school. Ms. Chaudhry's work focuses on girls who experience sexual harassment and violence, are denied athletic opportunities, face unfair discipline, or are discriminated against because they are pregnant. She participates in litigation, administrative and legislative advocacy, and public education to ensure that schools are fulfilling their obligations under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and other civil rights laws. Prior to joining NWLC in 1997 as a Georgetown Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow, Ms. Chaudhry clerked for the Honorable Michael Daly Hawkins of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and the University of Maryland at College Park.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Co - Founder of Sagawa / Jospin
- Trustee at City Year, Inc
Shirley Sagawa is a Co-Founder of Sagawa/Jospin. Ms. Sagawa has served as a presidential appointee in both the first Bush and Clinton Administrations. As Deputy Chief of Staff to First Lady Hillary Clinton, she advised the First Lady on domestic policy. As Special Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy, Ms. Sagawa was instrumental to the creation of City Year for National Service. After Senate-confirmation as City Year's first managing director, she was an architect of AmeriCorps. Most recently, she led City Year for National and Community Service transition for President Obama.
Ms. Sagawa was the founding executive director of the Learning First Alliance, a partnership of national education associations. She has served as the Chief Counsel for Youth Policy for the Senate Labor Committee, where Ms. Sagawa drafted the Learn and Serve America legislation, and as senior counsel to the National Women's Law Center, responsible for military family and women's policy. She is the author of two books, The Charismatic Organization: Eight Ways to Grow a Nonprofit that Builds Buzz, Delights Donors, and Energizes Employees and Common Interest, Common Good: Creating Value through Business and Social Sector Partnerships.
Ms. Sagawa serves as a Trustee at City Year, Inc. Her forthcoming book, The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers are Transforming the Nation, will be published by Jossey-Bass this spring. Ms. Sagawa is a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, holds an MSc Degree from the London School of Economics, and graduated magna cum laude from Smith College.
Job Titles:
- Board Member / Executive Vice President & General Counsel, JPMorgan Chase & Co
- Executive Vice President and General Counsel for JPMorgan Chase & Co
Stacey Friedman is Executive Vice President and General Counsel for JPMorgan Chase & Co. She also serves as a member of the firm's Operating Committee. As such, she is responsible for the firm's exposure to legal risk, including litigation and enforcement matters, advising on products and services, and advocacy in connection proposed laws, rules and regulations.
Most recently, Friedman was the Deputy General Counsel for the firm and the General Counsel for the Corporate & Investment Bank. She joined the company in 2012 from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where she was a partner in the firm's Litigation Group and a key advisor to the firm.
She is a member of the board for the National Women's Law Center, an organization dedicated to fighting for gender justice in the courts, in public policy and in society as a whole.
Prior to joining Sullivan & Cromwell, Friedman was a clerk for the Honorable Gary L. Taylor, United States District Court, Central District of California. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and J.D. from Duke University School of Law. Prior to law school, she worked for Senator Dianne Feinstein. Friedman currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her wife and two children.
Job Titles:
- Vice President for Finance
Job Titles:
- Board Chair / Vice Chair & General Counsel, Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance, KPMG
- Vice Chair and General Counsel - Legal, Regulatory and Compliance at KPMG LLP
Tonya Robinson serves as Vice Chair and General Counsel-Legal, Regulatory and Compliance at KPMG LLP. As a member of the firm's management committee, she oversees the Office of General Counsel, Office of the Chief Compliance Officer, Office of Government Affairs, and Firmwide Security. She also serves as the Secretary to KPMG's U.S. Board of Directors and, in that capacity, is responsible for firm governance matters. In addition, Tonya, as Head of Legal and Compliance for the Americas Region, serves on the Americas Management Committee.
Before joining KPMG in 2017, Tonya served as the Acting General Counsel and, before that, Principal Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), serving as legal advisor to the Secretary and principal-in-charge of a legal office of nearly 600 professionals in HUD's Headquarters, 10 Regional Offices, and 40 Field Offices. Prior to her federal agency service, Tonya was Special Assistant to President Obama for Justice and Regulatory Policy at the White House. As Special Assistant to the President, she focused on a broad range of civil and criminal justice policy matters, including, for example, fair housing issues, sentencing reform, voting and election reform, and workplace equality. She also managed several interagency processes, including convening the President's National Equal Pay Task Force, which included the key federal departments and agencies focused on ensuring that American workers receive equal pay for equal work; co-chairing an interagency working group charged with addressing employment opportunities for individuals previously involved with the criminal justice system; and co-chairing an interagency roundtable to explore ways to leverage civil legal services to promote access to housing, education, employment, health care, and an array of other positive outcomes.
Prior to her service at the White House, Tonya was a partner at the international law firm WilmerHale LLP. Her practice at WilmerHale focused primarily on complex civil litigation and investigations, including Congressional investigations, as well as discrete civil rights matters. Tonya started her legal career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Following her clerkship, she joined Wilmer (then Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering), where she worked on a range of litigation matters, including the ground-breaking University of Michigan affirmative action cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. She left Wilmer in 2001 (and later returned) to work as counsel to then-Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, where she focused on a mix of legal and policy issues, including corporate governance matters. Her work for then-Senator Biden marked Tonya's fourth stint on Capitol Hill, having earlier worked as a legislative aide to Senator Terry Sanford (NC), Congressman David Price (NC), and Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX).
Tonya holds a B.A. degree in Public Policy Studies and a Certificate in Women's Studies from Duke University, where she also served as president of the undergraduate student body. She also obtained a post-graduate degree in African Studies from the University of Cape Town in South Africa as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar and her Juris Doctor Degree from Harvard Law School.
Job Titles:
- Chief of External Affairs
Uma Iyer, Chief of External Affairs, has spent more than 15 years working in multi-channel marketing, communications and fundraising, and joined NWLC as Vice President for Marketing and Communications. In this role she helped define NWLC's national brand, broaden its visibility, and provide strategic oversight for media relations and digital and field organizing strategies. Prior to joining NWLC, Ms. Iyer served as the Senior Director of Engagement at Vital Voices, working to invest in women who improve our world. She led international influencer campaigns, signature awareness and fundraising events, integrated and crisis communications, and overall brand positioning. In her five years there, Ms. Iyer helped fuel record digital fundraising growth and media visibility and led internal advancement around the organization's values and culture.