WIP Professional Development Program 2022: Taking a Stand
After an inspiring year of programming in 2021, the Professional Development Committee is excited to continue the momentum with another powerful series for 2022: Taking a Stand. This insightful three-part series will focus on harnessing your passion, elevating your voice in conversations, boldly pushing boundaries where it matters, and driving impact across the board (not just in the board room!). Each event in this series will offer you the opportunity to broaden perspectives, build confidence and gain valuable tools to further your success:
Part II — Finding Your Voice in Negotiation
Negotiation is key for career development, whether it is an ongoing conversation about career goals with your boss, a negotiation for a promotion or salary change, or enrolling leaders and peers in a new idea or strategy. In this session, we will discuss how successful negotiation requires taking a stand, perseverance, resilience, self-reflection, and passion, and how to feel confident and comfortable during the process.
Stephanie D. Neely
Managing Director
J.P. Morgan
Stephanie D. Neely, managing director, is the Head of North America Institutional Central team for J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Stephanie has spent 3 decades in the financial services arena. Most recently, she was a vice president and assistant treasurer of the Allstate Insurance Company, where she was responsible for the strategic direction and management of liquidity, capital, ratings, corporate finance and corporate structure issues. In addition, she was the chair of Allstate’s pension investment committees and a member of the 401 (k) investment committee.
Prior to Allstate, Stephanie was appointed to serve as treasurer of the City of Chicago in December 2006, elected in February 2007 and re-elected to a second term in February 2011. As the treasurer of Chicago, she raised reporting efficiencies and reinvented the Office with innovative programs and community outreach, including Small Business Development Loans and financial literacy programs reaching more than 240,000 Chicago Public School students. Stephanie also managed the city’s $7 billion financial portfolio and consistently beat the 90-day Treasury bill benchmark while conducting 60% of trades with minority, women and disabled veteran broker dealers. She was also a trustee on all five city pension plans.
Stephanie began her career as a financial analyst with Smith Barney in municipal finance and subsequently held municipal finance management positions at different firms in New York and Chicago, including First Chicago/Bank One. She was also a vice president of institutional sales at Northern Trust Global Investments.
Stephanie earned a BA in economics from Smith College, where she formerly served as the treasurer of the alumna board and a member of the endowment committee, and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She also holds FINRA Series 3, 7 and 63 licenses. Stephanie is actively involved in the firm’s Black Managing Director Round Table and a board member of the Chicago Inclusion Action Committee.
Emma Rodriguez-Ayala
General Counsel
LGIM America
Emma is an accomplished investment management professional, board director, community leader and speaker. She is the General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Board Secretary of LGIM America, the U.S. arm of LGIM, the 6th largest institutional asset manager globally, managing over $1.8 trillion. LGIM America focuses on ESG and sustainable investment solutions, pension stabilization and retirement income generation. Emma leads the risk, compliance, legal and governance functions. She chairs the LGIM America Risk Oversight Committee and is a member of LGIM America’s Executive Committee and ESG Steering Committee. Globally, she is part of the LGIM Global Senior Leadership Team, and serves on Legal & General Group’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Council. She also serves as a board director of First Bank of Chicago / First Bank of Highland Park, the 5th largest privately held bank in Chicagoland. She was previously an investment management partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, among other in-house and private practice experiences. Emma serves on the boards of WTTW (Chicago PBS), WFMT (Chicago’s Classical Music Station) and Angeles Investors, and is member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association. She co-led the ESG and Green Economy Sub-Committee of the Volunteer Economic Policy Committee for the 2020 Biden for President Campaign, focused on developing ESG strategy and policy proposals for the campaign and the new administration. Emma has been previously recognized as a Top Latino Leader by the U.S. National Diversity Council, as a DEI Leader by the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association, and as a Business Leader of Color by Chicago United, among other honors.
Pamela York
Co-founder and Managing Partner
Capita3
Pamela York is a serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and business executive, with extensive success from launch to exit in healthcare and technology companies. She is a co-founder and managing partner of Capita3, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on healthcare innovations.
Previously Pam was a co-founder of two VC-backed startups each with exits, and an inventor on a dozen patents commercialized in three technology platforms. Pam then shifted her focus from entrepreneur to investor and has helped build innovation pipelines and drive capital formation across the U.S. As part of this transition, she managed a large life science intellectual property portfolio and led or invested in 100 deals with 15 exits to date, including 4 IPOs.
She’s also helped launch several venture funds and is a mentor for Revolution Ventures and an advisor to Medical Alley. Pam was named mentor of the year for UnitedHealthcare Techstars, a Venture Fellow for MATTER, and serves on numerous boards.
Additionally, Pam has 20 years of experience in transformational leadership development and she’s featured on TED Talks and the Audible Motivated to Lead channel for her novel startup CEO accelerator work. She’s been adjunct faculty teaching the NSF I-CorpsTM lean startup programs to faculty and graduate students and taught lean startup principles to Saudi Arabian women leaders. She has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of Illinois and completed a private equity financing program at Wharton.