personal branding

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Karen Gamba is the Co-Founder and CMO of the ExV Agency, a minority woman and LGBTQIA+ owned digital production company that focuses on short-term marketing strategies, online fundraising and socially impactful visibility initiatives for non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and small businesses.

Karen is also the co-founder and executive director of Women Building Women, a nonprofit organization that supports transgender women of color, women of color who have been previously incarcerated (returning citizens) and women professionals who work with at-risk male youth through professional mentorship, entrepreneurial leadership and educational programs, that allow these individuals access to promising career and business opportunities with built in networks of senior women executives.

She was nominated to be a woman who wows by Nina McCann – learn more about her.

I am so excited to have Deborah Farone in the Women Who Wow series as she is truly someone I admire and someone who is the epitome of a woman who wows (also our last names rhyme). She is brilliant, generous with her time and advice, and she is a woman who supports other women.

In case you don’t know who Deborah is, she created and managed the marketing departments for two of the world’s most highly respected law firms, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Debevoise & Plimpton. She now runs a consulting firm Farone Advisors, where she works with company leaders and C-suite professionals to produce innovative programs in the areas of strategic planning, business development, marketing communications and key client management.

Somehow she found time to write a book in 2019! It’s one of my favorite industry “encyclopedias” and not just because I’m quoted in it. The book “Best Practices in Law Firm Business Development and Marketing,” published by PLI, was based on more than 60 interviews of law firm leaders, innovators, technologists, academics and marketers.

Learn more about Deborah.

Alice Simons is a marketing, communications and business development professional with more than 20 years of experience in the for- and non- profit sectors.

In her current role as Marketing Communications Manager at national boutique consumer and commercial financial services compliance law firm Hudson Cook, she plans and executes strategic marketing campaigns, including digital content marketing, brand management, PR and client outreach.

She began her career in non-profit annual fund development roles at the New York Philharmonic and Mann Center for the Performing Arts before transitioning to a marketing role at a consulting/law firm. In 2018, she became the first in-house marketer at Hudson Cook.

Alice is a lifelong volunteer for various community organizations, including Special Olympics, the Annapolis Opera and Annapolis Film Festival. She currently serves as member-at-large on LMA’s Baltimore Local Steering Committee and on the Marketing and Business Partner Committees for the American Financial Services Association.

Learn more about her in this Women Who Wow profile.

In this Women Who Wow profile, get to know Alexis Robertson, the Director of Diversity & Inclusion at Foley & Lardner LLP.

A former lawyer and legal recruiter, Alexis became a D&I professional after realizing that practicing law and serving as a legal recruiter wasn’t her true passion. She was able to take valuable skills from those positions and pivot to a diversity and inclusion career first at Baker & McKenzie and now at Foley & Lardner.

As Alexis noted in one of her terrific LinkedIn posts (you should follow her on LinkedIn!), if not for the pandemic, she would not have launched what she often refers to as her “pandemic podcast.” She says it was the need to introduce herself and check-in on attorneys that led to her personally calling 100 attorneys within her first few months at Foley.

She says that need created the space for the most amazing one-on-one conversations, which inspired a podcast unique to Big Law focused on showcasing human stories, highlighting the unique professional paths of Foley attorneys. The podcast is called The Path and the Practice and you should check it out.

Learn more about Alexis and her career path in this Women Who Wow profile.

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I can’t tell you how many times I have encountered mean girls in my personal and professional life.

If you follow my blog you know this because I write about it quite often.

You you also know that I have been quite shocked to find out people who were my friends betrayed me. And people with whom I worked were actually plotting against me. Now did I deserve any of this? Absolutely not. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. Am I an expert in mean girls? Well sort of. I didn’t set out to be one. And I certainly wish I could erase all the terrible things that have happened to me over the years by them.