Freeman Means Business' Wonder Women in Business Podcast

CATHERINE LEW, Co-Founder & Principal Consultant

The Lew Edwards Group

With over three decades of experience in community organizing and politics, Catherine Lew is known as one of California's most successful advocates for local government and women running for office. A first-generation California native, she was raised in the Salinas Valley by parents who immigrated to this country to seek a better life.

A California attorney and veteran of over 700 political campaigns, Catherine was a 10-year trainer for EMERGE – an organization working to elect more Democratic women to office. She has worked on behalf of political clients who include Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the California Democratic Party, California Teachers Association, California Nurses Association, children's organizations, Sierra Club, and scores of local elected women. She was Deputy Political Director of the Northern California Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992.

Catherine’s firm --The Lew Edwards Group—is a nationally recognized, award-winning company founded 23 years ago. LEG has enacted $38.5 Billion in California revenue measures at a 95% win rate to repair classrooms and improve libraries, parks, and public hospitals consistent with the firm’s philosophy to empower voters to protect their local quality of lives.

A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco School of Law, Catherine and her spouse live in Oakland, California. When she is not busy during an election cycle, she can be found at a barn with her American Quarter Horse Dakota.

Twitter: @catherinevlew

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URL: www.lewedwardsgroup.com or email [email protected]

Susan Miciotto Marchand was born in Louisiana, and grew up moving back and forth between LA and TX, landing in Baton Rouge in 1980. She is a 1988 LSU graduate, as well as a 1994 BR General School of Nursing graduate. After a 15-year nursing career, Susan became the Co-owner of a fitness studio called Yoglates, which combines Yoga, Pilates and calisthenics. The discipline of Yoglates has been in existence for 20 plus years, and Susan is very proud to be a co-owner of the only Yoglates studio in the region.

Susan is happily married to Matthew Marchand, her husband of 29 years, and is the mother of 3 near-adult daughters. Her family has always been her priority, and nursing and owning her own business have given her the flexibility to allow her to continue focusing on them throughout the years, while building careers that were important and essential to her.

Community involvement includes the support of many businesses and events in BR, such as the Bella Bowman Foundation supporting Comfort Care for families of children with pediatric cancers, food drives supporting the Baton Rouge Food Bank, and Companion Animal Alliance pet adoption yoga classes. Yoglates has donated thousands of dollars to local charities and events over the past 11 years.

Susan’s proudest professional moments include obtaining an ASPAN certification during her time as an RN, which is a Post-Anesthesia RN certification.  She also enjoyed her time as a Surgical ICU nurse, and had many brilliant female mentors in nursing school and in her 15 year nursing career. As a business owner, her proudest professional moments include celebrating a 10 year anniversary in the current Yoglates location amidst a surplus of Boutique Fitness Studios in the Baton Rouge area.

Similarly, Susan counts her business, Yoglates, being honored by LSU as a Top 100 Fastest Growing Tiger owned business in 2018, an incredible accomplishment.

Keep Calm & Cope Coronacast with Lindsay Griffiths, Marcie Shunk, Susan Freeman & Katie Barnard

Verni Howard is a native of Shreveport, Louisiana and the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. C. F. Williams. She is a 1987 graduate of Caddo Magnet High School and furthered her studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. After earning a BS in Microbiology (1993) and a MPA (1997), Verni began the Commercial Banking Training program with SunTrust Bank in Atlanta, GA. After more than 18-years of corporate and non-profit banking experience including Regions Bank, Whitney Bank and JPMorgan Chase, Verni became the new Executive Director of Providence House in December of 2015. In addition to a stellar banking career, she has served on 15 major boards of directors across the country including East Baton Rouge Parish Redevelopment Authority Advisory Council, Cancer Services of Greater Baton Rouge (In-coming President), Volunteers of America (Baton Rouge), Volunteers in Public Schools (Treasurer and President), Boys and Girls Club, Catholic Charities (Baton Rouge) and Downtown Development District. In 2011 she was nominated for the Outstanding Women in Business Award by Cancer Services of Greater Baton Rouge and in 2012 received the Volunteer Activist Award from the Emerge Center, an honor bestowed upon twelve outstanding volunteers across the city of Baton Rouge.  In 2015 she was recognized for her outstanding achievements and was honored with an African American Achievement Award.

Verni is a 2018 Virginia Shehee Influential Woman Award finalist and a 2018 Athena Award finalist. In 2017 Verni received the Blue Cross Blue Shield Angel Award from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation. She is a Paul Harris Fellow (Shreveport Rotary Club) and 2018 board member of the club. Verni is also a new member of the Louisiana 4-H Foundation’s board of director, Christus Highland Quality Committee, Choice Neighborhood Implementation Advisory Group, Bancorp South CRA Advisory Group and is an ex-officio member of the board of Providence House. Above all, she is committed to God, family and service to the community. Verni and her husband Don, have been married for 21-years.  Together, they have the joy of parenting two fantastic children, Hannah Elizabeth (age 12) and Matthew Reed (age 9). She lives by the belief that we are our brother’s keeper.

Deb Scaringi is a marketing and business development professional advising lawyers and law firms across varied practice specialties. Whether as an independent consultant or an integral part of an in-house marketing team, Deb has the sophistication and experience to handle marketing and business development initiatives that directly contribute to the success of law firms and their professionals. Deb works with clients on strategic business development planning and coaching, comprehensive content creation and editing initiatives, existing marketing tool audits, website and blog development and maintenance, social media programs, skills trainings and presentations, event management and other crucial relationship building activities. Deb also helps firms to transition established marketing programs during mergers, build departments from scratch and functions as both a fractional CMO and on-call project manager.

Janet Fouts is the CEO of Tatu Digital Media and founder of Nearly Mindful.com She’s a certified coach and resilience facilitator. Her latest book “When Life Hits the Fan” is a mindful guide to self-care for caregivers. Her work as a coach and meeting facilitator touches on topics of resilience, emotional intelligence and stress management. She leads retreats, workshops and speaks about mindful work around the world.

Jeanel Carlson is a dynamic sales, marketing and communications leader with over 15 years of experience with global Fortune 500, business-to-business technology, and consumer companies. An exceptional hands-on leader, Jeanel loves a steep learning curve and digging into new challenges as shown with her well-rounded career from sales, account management, communications, integrated marketing to product, brand, social, and digital.

Robin Athlyn Thompson MBA has spent over 46 years in the legal profession having worked for some of the most brilliant legal minds who made case law.  47 years later, those roots have evolved into an amazing career as being raised by lawyers taught me great investigation, body language, and ability to read a situation quickly. She considers herself fortunate to work on some of the largest litigation of its time.

Diane Darling helps people learn how to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships. We can't do everything by ourselves. Let's connect and see how I can help you earn more money, save time, and connect with others in a meaningful way.

Keep Calm & Cope Coronacast with Lindsay Griffiths, Marcie Shunk, Susan Freeman & Katie Barnard