2020

In this installment of the Women Who Wow series, get to know Nita Sanger.

Nita is the Chief Executive Officer of Idea Innovate Consulting, a boutique strategy consulting firm transforming businesses for growth in professional, financial and legal services. In addition, Nita is a Managing Director at Corporate Legal Innovation Consultants (CLIC), a consulting company focused on the legal industry and the Chief Operating Officer at In the House, a community for innovative general counsel.

Nita is a C-suite expert with more than 20 years of strategy and operations experience, transforming and scaling businesses for growth at global large and mid-sized corporates, and start-ups. In her previous roles, she assisted businesses to redesign their processes, reduce costs, optimize M&A /post-merger integrations, and drive talent and change management.

Relationships

No matter how brilliant a lawyer is, he/she is unlikely to steadily bring in business throughout their career solely through providing high-quality legal services.

In any relationship-driven business, the vast majority of work goes to those who not only do great work but who understand their clients’ businesses inside and out, make their clients look good both internally and externally, and are the kind of people with whom clients genuinely like working. That being said, building relationships takes patience, persistence and a personal touch, which are skills that all of us can refine and polish.

I’ve put together tips for lawyers at any level focusing on cultivating and strengthening relationships (although they can be adapted to anyone in pretty much any field). I hope they inspire you (and lead to new clients)!

Michele Bonds is a New York-based Principal at Heidrick & Struggles and a member of the global Legal, Risk, Compliance & Government Affairs practice. Michele’s primary focus is on law firm infrastructure/business professionals, and law firm culture and acceleration advisory work. She has over 20 years of financial services and legal industry experience.

Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Michele was longstanding Chief of Staff to the Senior Chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell. She worked with firm leaders in navigating clients through numerous complex events including the financial crisis.

Michele received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in political science and her Masters of Business Administration at Babson College. I worked with Michele at S&C and always admired her work ethic, poise and creativity.

Learn more about her in this profile.

I am thrilled to be featured in a recent Practising Law Institute (PLI) #inSecuritiesPod podcast along with Deborah Farone.

In the podcast, Deborah and I discussed the strategies and…

happy face

I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like to find more happiness in their daily lives.

Self care is so important, especially now. A wise friend of mine told me that sometimes happiness is a choice you need to make and that it won’t always come easy. We still need to try. Here are some ideas that I hope inspire you on adding more happiness to your life.

Thank you to the New York Law Journal and Mid-Market Report for publishing my new article, “20 Ways Small- and Mid-Size Firms Can Appropriately Market Themselves During the Pandemic.”

Your most important job right now is to lay the foundation for when we return to “normal” and also to be ready, willing and able to assist your clients during this time of great change, confusion and stress. Empathy is the single most important characteristic you can have right now to build stronger relationships.

In case you are looking for some “homework” in the marketing and business development area, here are a few ideas to keep you busy during this period.