Freeman Means Business' Wonder Women in Business Podcast

Rosalia Labate practices in financial forensics, largely in divorce matters, navigating the financial issues involved from gathering documents to preparing a Statement of Net Worth to business valuation services to forensic accounting to understanding both the short-term and long-term implications of the financial decisions. She also specializes in litigation support as a part of the "divorce team", working hand in hand with the attorney. Qualified as a financial expert throughout New York.

When people are going through martial or business divorces, they need someone who will educate and empower them with the right information so you can make smart decisions. Rosalia is that person.  As someone who has experienced the divorce process first-hand (and with hundreds of clients), she has learned how to make the process more efficient so people can move on to their next chapter -- sooner.

Rosalia provides consulting, forensic, business valuation, mediation, and testifying expert services in the financial aspects of marital and business divorces. With a strong attention to detail, she unravels the most complicated financial situations and excels at explaining in plain English, the economics of the situation, as well as the options available for settlement. Anything from investigations to guidance through litigation, Rosalia makes it digestible. As part of the team from start to finish, Rosalia ensures people have the right information to make smart decisions for themselves and their families including financial investigations with the client prior to their hiring their attorney to guidance through litigation.

Steph Palermo, raised in a Sicilian family, taps into her experiences both at home and in Sicily to bring you simple wisdom to transform your life and business. Sicilians are passionate about family, food, love and respect. Steph tackles Sicilian traditions like the family dinner table, forgiveness, loyalty and generosity. She offers tips on incorporating these values and others into your life to strengthen familial bonds, inspire lives and ultimately positively affect the bottom line in your business. As a short story teller, Steph draws you into her world and demonstrates how adopting a Sicilian way of thinking and being, you will begin to value all you have. You will enjoy healthy relationships, inner peace and an increase in productivity at home and work, not to mention an increase in appreciation of mealtime.

If you are of Italian or Sicilian descent, you will identify with Steph's stories as you stroll down memory lane. She will remind you of what you may have forgotten, or you will nod in agreement as a practicing Sicilian.

This book is for anyone who wants to truly embrace life and enjoy every moment. Whether you are interested in positively influencing your family, a single person who desires to offer and receive value in relationships or a business owner who cares about employees and increasing productivity. You will learn what it takes to reach your desired outcomes. Steph Palermo melds old school values with our current, modern day world.

Meade Hartfield has represented clients nationwide in a variety of industries, including financial services, drug and medical device, automotive, aviation, industrial equipment, insurance, and environmental. Her financial services practice includes representing financial institutions, auto-finance lenders and mortgage companies in defensive litigation matters throughout the country, including alleged violations of TCPA, TILA, FCRA, FDCPA and state deceptive trade practices laws. She also spearheads regulatory compliance services in response to pending or new legislation.

Meade has been admitted to practice before all state and federal courts in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. She is an active member of the Defense Research Institute (DRI), where she serves as Seminar Chair of the Women in the Law Committee, as well as the Women in the Law Liaison to the International Law Committee and the Automotive Section of the Product Liability Committee. Meade also is serving as the inaugural chair of Women in the Law Committee for the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association.

Notable Matters

Heidi Turner is a Communications Consultant | Public Speaker | Instructor | Writer | Advocate

Heidi Turner is the founder and owner of Corporate Writers, and is passionate about helping women magnify their messages.

Heidi has written for clients in numerous sectors, including legal, technology, healthcare and finance. She has helped law firms establish their authority and build their clientele, and assisted local immigration organizations in increasing awareness of their services. She helps her clients find their authentic voices to engage their audiences and build their brand.

Heidi has a bachelor's degree in general studies from Simon Fraser University and currently instructs students enrolled in SFU's editing program. She frequently gives presentations to organizations about freelance writing, networking, starting and running a business and other writing-related topics. She has presented or spoken on panels for the Professional Writers Association of Canada, Editors Canada, Editors BC, MagNet, University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, University of the Fraser Valley, Magazines BC, and local arts and immigration organizations.

In 2013, Heidi was honoured with the Abbotsford Arts Council's Arty Award for Outstanding Artist in the Literary Arts. She spends her free time advising and mentoring fellow freelance writers on starting their business and networking. She previously founded a group for local business women to meet and discuss their career and business issues while supporting each other.

For four years, Heidi served on the national board of directors for the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC, now the Freelance Media Guild) as the BC Regional Director.

She is passionate about advocating for women's rights, diversity, and inclusion, and is especially interested in changing policies and language that are unnecessarily complex and exclusionary.

Heidi is based near Vancouver, British Columbia.

Mandy McEwen is the Founder & CEO of Mod Girl Marketing, an award-winning digital marketing agency based in California. She was named a top 24 B2B marketer by LinkedIn, listed by Search Engine Journal as a top 12 SEO expert, and named a top 20 female marketer by G2. Leveraging LinkedIn and thought leadership marketing, Mandy and her team unlock growth opportunities for C-suite executives and brands who deserve them, resulting in more brand awareness, more authority, and more impact.

Karen Cornwell spent her career in Tech; she lived it, learned from it, and now wants to change the tide for future technology aficionados. Her lifelong quest is to improve innovation and drive top-line growth for technology companies. Karen believes to really do this we must learn to leverage our gender diversity. After years of honing her product management expertise (how to bring value to clients) she is now focusing on how people’s interactions can be improved (bringing value to both employees and companies). She founded two companies to deliver this work, ConsultCornwell and AttunoVation.

Jasmine O'Brien prides herself on the strength of her client relationships.  She believes that lawyers need to be customer-centric problem solvers who partner with business to achieve their commercial objectives.  She’s not afraid to do things differently and is at her happiest when she is getting results for her clients.  She understands that every business was once somebody’s dream and brings that awareness to her work.

Jasmine practises across all areas of employment law, industrial relations, and discrimination, harassment and bullying.

Jasmine's Principal Areas of Practice:

Nada Alnajafi is an award-winning attorney with deep experience serving as in-house counsel for startups and public companies over the past 12 years. She currently serves as Corporate Counsel for Franklin Templeton, a Fortune-500 global financial services organization. Previously, she worked in-house for Faraday Future, Lexus, and Concannon Business Consulting where she gained experienced in the automotive and tech industries. Nada is passionate about leveraging the latest in legal tech to gain efficiencies in the contracts management process. With her dynamic legal and consulting background, she is more than just an attorney; she is a trusted advisor, business partner, project manager, creative problem-solver, and skilled negotiator. In addition, Nada enjoys training contract negotiators on the ins and outs of contracts negotiations and redlining etiquette. During the pandemic, Nada wanted to find a way to connect with other contract professionals and, as a result, she created Contract Nerds – the new home for everything contracts.

Farissa Knox is the Founder and CEO of RLM Media, a holding company and advertising agency dedicated to expanding how advertisers look at and talk to todays “actual” consumer; the Founder and Creative Director of WhatRUWearing Productions, the production house behind the reality series, PRGirl showing the professional and personal lives of ladies running the worlds of fashion, beauty and lifestyle Public Relations; the Author of Love, Sex and Friendship: In No Particular Order, her memoir describing her journey around career, love, self discovery and dating during her mid 20’s in New York City; and a wife and a mother.

Malur Narayan is a proven technology business leader having distinguished himself through his broad business experience in software, telecom, networking and IT products and services.

Malur is also actively involved with several startups as an advisor, investor, and a mentor – specifically as co-founder of BoardSeatMeet, an online platform for diversity in Boards, and with Webware.io, a toolkit to help businesses go online.

He has over 28 years of industry experience having worked in all five continents. He has held a broad range of senior management roles at Nortel and Tata ranging from sales, business development, product management & marketing, and product development/engineering.

Malur was in a senior leadership role, reporting to the CEO of TCS, to bring TCS's technology solutions to benefit the Tata group companies — specifically digital transformation — including a Big Data Customer insight program.

Malur pioneered self-managed teams in software development in the early 90s. His research in Reverse Engineering, Inverse resolution and Induction led to the introduction of Adaptive learning algorithms in Machine Learning in 1991.

Malur holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from University of Western Ontario, Canada and a MBA from the University of Ottawa, Canada. He began his career as a software engineer at Nortel.

He has been a speaker at several International business forums including EMBA programs at Cornell University, Imperial College of London, IIM-Ahmedabad and Queens University in Canada. He is known for his positive attitude, people skills, great sense of humor, and is immensely passionate about trail hiking/running, creating music, gardening and writing. He is actively involved in charitable activities for mental health care and awareness.

His story on building relationships and personal brand has recently been featured in a book titled “Get your Next Promotion”, by Manbir Kaur

Malur is based in Austin, Texas.