Freeman Means Business' Wonder Women in Business Podcast

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.

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.

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.

A senior marketing executive with broad experience across business-to-business marketing in large, medium and small sized law firms, Jennifer’s key strengths lie in strategic and organizational development. She is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Connolly Gallagher LLP.

As a founding member and past-President of the Legal Marketing Association-Metro Philadelphia Chapter, Jennifer is actively involved at the regional and national levels of this organization. She also served as co-Executive Editor of Strategies, the Journal of The Legal Marketing Association.

Most recently Jennifer joined the 2020 Women On Boards campaign and co-chairs the Wilmington Steering Committee. The overall goal is to educate women about how they can navigate their own contacts to get on corporate boards and be a part of the larger national conversation.

Prior to building her marketing career in the U.S., she lived and worked overseas. In Melbourne, Australia she worked as a Marketing Analyst for the Bank of Melbourne (now ANZ bank). In Kwazulu Natal, South Africa she worked as a contract marketer for Unilever and volunteered at the U.S. Consulate General.

With a strong desire to raise awareness about the environment and energy consumption in general, Jennifer co-founded aFewSteps.org, a community organization that raises awareness and promotes environmental responsibility in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and neighboring communities.

As a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Kristin Campbell fell in love with the smell of wine in the barrel rooms of her winery clients during inventory counts, while obtaining her Certified Public Accountant license with KPMG more than 25 years ago.  Soon after, a young, introductory level sommelier, working the floor at Left Bank in Menlo Park, opened her eyes to wine in a new way and inspired her even further.  From there, her passion for wine and food excelled quickly as did her career in the High-Tech Startup world of Silicon Valley.  Kristin held various management and executive positions in finance and operations until 2001 when she began independently consulting for young technology companies, helping CEOs build their businesses from the ground up.  During that time, Kristin also donated her time extensively to education, holding various board and committee seats in the Menlo Park City School District.

In early 2013, the universe conspired to reunite her with that inspirational, now Master Sommelier, 16 years after her memorable encounter at Left Bank. This time she was inspired by the business trifecta - wine, education and another startup challenge.  Together, Kristin and David Glancy, MS CWE partnered to write the business plan for his visionary San Francisco Wine School, now the largest wine school in the U.S.  Today, Kristin is Co-Owner and Chief Operating Officer, a California Wine Appellation Specialist CWAS® and the San Francisco Bay Area Ambassador for Women of the Vine & Spirits.  Forever in search of the perfect bite, she enjoys hiking, cooking, fine dining and experimenting with food and wine pairings.

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.

David G. Smith is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the US Naval War College; a gender, work and family researcher; author and speaker.

Charles Stone a lifelong resident of San Mateo County. He graduated from UC San Diego and Santa Clara University School of Law. Charles is an attorney by profession and is Of Counsel to the Law Offices of Katherine R. Moore, in addition to running his own small practice.

After a long history of education activism and youth sports volunteerism in Belmont, he was elected to the Belmont City Council in 2013 and served as Mayor in 2017. In 2018, he was elected to serve a second term.

Charles has also served on the San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors since 2015 (Chair, 2018), the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board of Directors (Caltrain) since 2018, and the San Mateo County Library Joint Powers Authority Board of Directors since 2014 (Chair, 2018 - present.) He was part of the working group that brought Peninsula Clean Energy to live and serves as a Governing Board Member with that organization, as well.

He is a strong supporter of the San Mateo County High School Mock Trial program and served as a scorer from 2005-2018. In 2018, Charles began coaching the Carlmont High School Mock Trial team.

Charles lives in Belmont with his wife, Jessica, and two daughters, Sophia and Sara (who both attend public school).

Laura Leopard is the founder and CEO of Leopard Solutions, which provides the world’s largest and most accurate law firm database for legal recruiters, attorneys, law firms, corporations, and law schools. Leopard Solutions competitive intelligence program, Firmscape, offers current and historical data for the legal industry. She has been instrumental in Leopard Solutions’ growth and development over the past 15 years and continues to push the envelope designing new systems and data points for their expanding client base.

Laura began her career as an actress in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, and moved to New York to pursue greater opportunities. She still ‘keeps her hand in’ the acting game, performing with yet another entrepreneurial venture Gotham Radio Theatre, which she founded in 2010.

Scott Love is the founder of the Attorney Search Group and is a high-stakes headhunter and “sports agent” for law firm partners. Scott has been a recruiter since 1995 and is one of the leading experts in his field. He produces and is the host for The Partner Podcast, has written over 250 articles on recruiting and leadership, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Huffington Post, and dozens of business publications across the globe. He is the author of Why They Follow: How to Lead with Positive Influence and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland. Prior to entering the business world, he was third in command of a U S Navy ship and during his shore duty tour was a leadership trainer at the world’s largest naval base. Scott works primarily in the DC and New York legal markets and lives in Virginia with his wife, two children, two cats, and a rescue dog named Ruby. In addition to recruiting, he is also a professional watercolor artist.