Freeman Means Business' Wonder Women in Business Podcast

Bianca N. Cotton is a thoughtful, strategic, entrepreneurial leader with extensive nonprofit program management, curriculum development, and training facilitation experience.

Bianca is driven to develop leaders who are managerially and emotionally competent in their professional practices. Passionate about intentionally creating positive social change in underrepresented populations and communities of need, while demonstrating sensitivity and compassion for all stakeholders.

Bianca is the founder and podcast host of “Behind the Confident Smile” about a lifestyle and personal development company inspiring women and girls to walk in love, live in hope and be healed from past hurts utilizing the vehicles of workshops, seminars, and educational materials to propel women and girls into purpose.

Bianca has served as a nonprofit professional for over 10 years. Earning both her Master’s Degree in Consulting in the Nonprofit and Corporate Sectors and Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, her passion is for helping women who suffer silently and smile brightly. It is demonstrated through her passionate writings and speaking. She is the founder of Behind the Confident Smile a movement created to inspire women to live in hope, walk in love, and be healed from past hurts. She is a wife and mom, and she resides in Chicago, IL.

Kaaren Whitney-Vernon is a serial entrepreneur who is interested in solving communication problems. Whether its communication between brands and consumers or employers and job seekers, she believes there is a better way to connect. She has just launched a new venture to help women in tech find inclusive companies to support their growth.

Before joining Shaftesbury as the head of the XR Department, Kaaren founded two successful companies. The first, Youth Culture Inc., a media agency specializing in helping brands to target millennials’ and working with brands like P&G, L’Oreal and Coca Cola. The second, shift2, created original short-form content for brands such as Walmart, U by Kotex®, Nokia and RBC. Today, at Shaftesbury, Kaaren charges her team to produce original content for television, film, and digital brands designed to drive revenue. 

Jennifer Marino Thibodaux is the founder of JMT Speaks, LLC. She is a seasoned, professional speaker and writer who draws on 15+ years of experience as an attorney and storyteller. She is obsessed with helping other professionals find and embrace their authentic selves to lead their best personal and professional lives. Jennifer speaks about authenticity, overcoming the imposter syndrome, and the art of effective communication.

Jennifer is also a full-time senior editor at a global legal publisher and was previously a partner at the law firm of Gibbons P.C. in Newark, NJ. During her 11 years in private practice, she focused on class action defense, e-discovery management and counseling, and also conducted internal investigations.

Jennifer graduated Seton Hall University School of Law, magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, and Bucknell University, cum laude. She has served as an Adjunct Professor of Appellate Advocacy at Seton Hall Law.

She is an executive committee member of the Women’s Leadership Committee at Seton Hall Law and a longtime trustee of Partners For Women and Justice, a non-profit dedicated to providing pro bono legal services to domestic violence survivors.

Corporate legal and compliance leaders turn to Leigh to help them improve performance, develop strategy, promote the value of legal/compliance, advocate for their business, lead remote global teams, organize their retreats and assist with particular needs.

Law firms retain Leigh and ELD International to:  improve strategies and actions in select groups and geographic markets; organize client-facing programs to raise profile and build relationships with legal services buyers; and conduct research with buyers worldwide, to improve marketing and BD initiatives.

Founder and Executive Director of the exclusive roundtable group, Global Counsel Leaders Circle, Leigh develops and moderates many of the Global Counsel Leaders programs, including those of the prestigious Leaders Circle. From 1999-2009, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell (LNMH) retained Leigh to organize and facilitate Counsel to Counsel: A Forum on Best Practices in Delivering Corporate Legal Services, an initiative she co-founded.  She has participated in hundreds of corporate counsel roundtables in 23 countries on all continents.

Building on a financial services and public policy background, Leigh was a VP at JP Morgan Chase for 7 years, where she had management and director assignment in product management, marketing, business development and new business launches, across 20 countries.

A recognized thought leader, her articles on the role of the General Counsel, legal risk, regulatory challenges, governance and compliance have been published in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, American Lawyer, Legal Week and other publications. Since 2015, she has been the Global In-House columnist for ALM’s Corporate Counsel.  Leigh’s book BRIGHT IDEAS: INSIGHTS FROM LEGAL LUMINARIES WORLDWIDE, a collection of essays, is available on Amazon.

Leigh has an MBA (high honors) in International Management and a BA, International Relations (honors).  In 2012, she was inducted as a Fellow in the College of Law Practice Management and in 2016, she was a judge in the British Legal Awards.

Sumathi Pundit is a trusted leader in the business intelligence domain for professional services firms. In 2004, Sumathi founded Evalueserve Canada, the Canadian agency for global market intelligence and analytics firm Evalueserve, where she led the initiative to set up offshore market intelligence teams for the Canadian arms of two of the Big 4 accounting firms, among other clients.

Following the sale of her franchise back to Evalueserve, Sumathi continued to act as an advisor to business development and knowledge management teams across the legal services spectrum.

Sumathi founded Kaitongo in 2018 to develop an AI-powered sector, client, and market intelligence platform to help sellers turn business insights into meaningful conversations, building deeper relationships and, ultimately, generating higher revenues.

Doina Dumitru, PharmD, MBA, FASHP is currently a Director of Professional Services at Becton Dickinson (BD), with responsibility over the national implementation teams for the Pharmogistics and BD Cato automation solutions. She completed her PharmD at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy and an executive MBA at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Prior to joining BD, Dr. Dumitru spent many years in acute and ambulatory practice settings, including pharmacy informatics and hospital pharmacy leadership roles in Illinois and Texas. She is the author of The Pharmacy Informatics Primer, as well as multiple other informatics and hospital practice management publications and speaking engagements. Dr. Dumitru has served as a preceptor and lecturer for the University of Houston Health System Pharmacy Administrative residency program. In addition, Dr. Dumitru has served on many ASHP committees and councils on leadership and informatics, including her current appointment as a member of ASHP's SOPIT Education Steering Committee.

Vanessa Kuroda is an electrical systems engineer for a well known commercial space company, working on a heavy lift orbital rocket. She was previously the Staff Telemetry and (RF) Communications Engineer for Stratolaunch Systems, which builds hypersonic aircraft from the ground up. Vanessa is an experienced aerospace communication systems engineer, with wide experience across the aerospace industry, including NASA Ames Research Center, Airbus’s Silicon Valley center A^3, JPL, and more.

She earned her B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California with an emphasis on Communications Systems. After internships at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, and Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, she became the primary Spacecraft Communications Engineer in NASA’s Ames Research Center Engineering Systems Division, where she performed integration, test, and operations for LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer, which orbited the moon, performed science experiments, and demonstrated the fastest laser communications link in space at the time. She was also selected as one of 40 across all of NASA to participate in their FIRST leadership development program and during her tenure at NASA, was chosen by Silicon Valley’s Business Journal as one of their 40 Under 40 Rising Stars. At Airbus, she was their Wireless and Comms Architect on UAS Traffic Management (UTM), and helped to create the wireless communications ecosystem needed to safely integrate unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into airspace systems globally.

In addition to her engineering work, she stays active in engineering organizations, the CLUB Incubator, and participates in STEM activities as much as she can. She is also a hip-hop dancer with a talent agency in San Francisco where she got to perform with Bebe Rexha and previously at USC, where she performed as a backup dancer for the Black Eyed Peas at the Kids’ Choice Awards. She also loves to spend time with her husband Theo and their new puppy Apollo.

For over 20 years, as both a senior legal executive and a coach, Sheila Murphy has been working with intelligent, accomplished lawyers to gain greater control over their careers, compensation, and courage. Her passion is helping women in the profession to go from uncertain and uninspired to unstoppable.

After 20 years of successfully litigating and developing and coaching talent in corporate America and law firms, Sheila is pursuing her passion for helping others reach their full potential. Leading with passion and purpose, Sheila is CEO and President of Focus Forward Consulting LLC and Chief Learning & Talent Officer of WOMN LLC, which are focused on having lawyers and leaders achieve their career and business goals.

Nastrah Carr is an Entertainment creative strategist, published creator, singer, and holistic healer. Overall, Nastrah is D'Empress of many trades with a mission to assist creatives in manifesting their dreams and goals through networking, researching, and protecting their mentality. As a native of Paterson NJ, with Jamaican roots, she strives to do more for her community through uplifting and motivating content with her passion for music in mind. On May 17, 2019, Nastrah launched her business Melaninated Minds Coalition, MMC Tribe, which curates experiences for her community to BE human BEINGS vs the Human DOING through music, events, & healing workshops. Their goal to provide insights on processes, networking opportunities, and motivation for growth within her passion industry.

Music has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember, for it is in her blood. Her style of music is what she likes to call Neo-Caribbean Soul which blends neo-soul, RnB, and reggae vocals to create a new experience for listeners. Nastrah is a musician and motivator not only for herself but for those who lacked the confidence to be who they are destined to be. She is one who utilizes her talents to inspire others to push past the doubts and discover who they want to be. Not everyone will see or want to understand your passion but keep going. Take the chance to listen and hear her story to experience her Neo-Caribbean-Soul.

Melissa Dinwiddie is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator of Creative Sandbox Solutions, a Silicon Valley-based consultancy that specializes in working with innovative, people-first companies grappling with boring (or nonexistent!) virtual trainings and events. She designs creative, interactive, playful experiences that attendees rave about because they acquire new skills and behaviors and build connections while having fun. One of her flagship offerings, Communicating for Influence is an active-learning program she initially developed for high-performance research teams at Facebook.

An acclaimed creativity instigator, Melissa is the author of The Creative Sandbox Way: Your Path to a Full-Color Life, an interactive playbook that countless readers have sworn freed them from creative block virtually overnight.

Melissa’s front-of-room experience ranges from traveling the country teaching calligraphy, to speaking on stages from Connecticut to California, to performing as a singer for audiences as big as 6,500, and presenting at professional conferences internationally. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she’s become sought after for her expertise in play-based techniques for leading engaging, interactive virtual meetings. When there isn’t a global pandemic going on, she performs improv with a number of different groups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A graduate of UC Berkeley with a Bachelors in Social Science, and the University of Birmingham, England, with a Masters in Cultural Studies, Melissa lives with her husband in Silicon Valley and spends her free time making art, playing ukulele, or chasing after her rescue kittens, Vinnie and Jack Jack.