Nan-b de Gaspé Beaubien ’57

Nan-b de Gaspé Beaubien ’57 is co-chair, with her husband, Philippe, of The de Gaspé Beaubien Foundation, a family foundation based in Montreal. She incorporated her study of educational psychology into a successful career in H.R. management and with her husband helped build their company Telemedia into one of the top multimedia companies in Canada. She is a founder of the Canadian Broadcast Institute and has been a member of many non-profit boards, as well as for-profit boards. She received the Canadian Centennial Medal and is a member of the Canadian Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame. She is the instigator and supporter of the Women’s Narratives of Success Project at Smith, which encourages women to reflect on their lives and careers.

Jennifer Beindorf ’91

Jennifer Beindorf is director of strategic development at Campos Creative Works, where she is responsible for new business development and cultivation of new strategic business partners. From 2002 to 2005, Beindorf was vice president of sales, marketing, and account management at Campos.

From 2005 to 2008, Beindorf was senior vice president, automotive, with IAG Research, Inc., where she oversaw client relationships with senior marketing and advertising executives from top automotive manufacturers, including Toyota, Lexus, Kia, and Nissan. Beindorf also led new business development within the automotive industry.

Early in her career, Beindorf held various marketing positions at Ford Motor Company, working on brand development projects in the United States and South America.

Beindorf holds a master’s of business administration from Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. She graduated from Smith with a BA in government.

Laryn Callaway ’90

Dr. Laryn Callaway, N.D., is the founder and CEO of Callaway Consumer Products, parent company of Organic Bistro Whole Life Meals. Her expertise resides at the intersection of health and organic/natural food product development, marketing and business. Most recently, Callaway has worked on the national rollout of the Organic Bistro Whole Life Meals brand of super-premium, healthy frozen meals. As the founder and chief product developer of this brand, she was the first to use sustainably caught wild Alaskan salmon, organic quinoa, and other novel, healthful ingredients in a single-serving meal product in the United States. She was recently recognized by the Natural Foods Merchandiser in their annual “40 under 40” list. Additionally, she has been an invited speaker at the natural products industry’s largest trade shows, Natural Products Expo East and West, discussing the future of healthy food and children’s nutrition.

Prior to her current position, Callaway was a private-practice naturopathic physician for eight years in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she treated patients for a variety of chronic illnesses. She was the first volunteer N.D. (naturopathic physician) to work at the St. Vincent de Paul medical clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. She has lectured extensively on health, wellness, and nutrition to patients, clinicians, and the general public.

Callaway received a BA in history from Smith and was conferred a doctorate degree in naturopathic medicine from the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in 1998.

Sue Zesiger Callaway ’86

Sue Zesiger Callaway, a book author, regular contributor to Fortune and CNNMoney.com, and automotive consultant, was most recently vice president and general manager of Jaguar Cars North America, where she oversaw marketing, sales, and operations that comprised 50 percent of Jaguar’s worldwide business. Callaway joined the Ford Motor Co. in 2000 as director of marketing for the Premier Automotive Group (Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo).

Before joining Ford, Callaway was a senior editor at Fortune, where she managed automotive industry and product coverage in addition to special issues, such as the 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business. Before Fortune, she was a founder and executive editor of Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress; deputy editor of special editions at Esquire; and a founding editor of Men’s Journal.

Linda Smith Charles ’74

Linda Smith Charles ’74 is the deputy director and chief operations officer in the Office of Human Resources at the Ford Foundation. In this capacity, she is responsible for human resources departmental administration; management and coordination of departmental tactical needs; and the development, implementation and management of all human resources policies and technology needs. She is the principal liaison between New York and the foundation’s 12 globally deployed offices for all human resources matters. Additionally, she serves as the foundation’s chief employee relations contact and is responsible for the development and implementation of foundation-wide training and professional development, performance management, and consultant contract management. Charles joined the foundation in November 1998.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, she was employed with AT&T in New Jersey. During her extensive career with AT&T, Charles held various management positions in human resources, billing operations, network services, marketing, finance, and tariff and regulatory support. At the time of her departure from AT&T, she was director of human resources for corporate professional services, which consisted of four organizations, including law and government affairs, public relations, corporate strategy, and the human resources organization. In this capacity, Charles was the senior human resources strategic business partner to the executive management of the four corporate professional services organizations and led human resources support teams responsible for the development and implementation of all human resources disciplines.

Charles graduated from Smith with a degree in psychology and has pursued graduate studies at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. She has volunteered her services on a variety of Smith alumnae committees and currently serves as a member of the college’s board of trustees as well as an advisor to the board of the Black Alumnae of Smith College (BASC) affinity group. Charles also serves as a trustee of the board of Marylawn of the Oranges Academy in South Orange, New Jersey.

Carol T. Christ

An esteemed scholar of English literature and a recognized leader in higher education, Carol T. Christ is the 10th president of Smith College.

Christ came to Smith in 2002 following a 30-year career in teaching and administration at the University of California, Berkeley, which culminated in her appointment as executive vice chancellor, the university’s top academic officer.

At Smith, Christ has led a comprehensive strategic planning process to identify the distinctive intellectual traditions of the Smith curriculum and to develop students’ essential capacities. Issued in 2007, The Smith Design for Learning: A Plan to Reimagine a Liberal Arts Education identifies priority areas—among them, international studies, environmental sustainability, and community engagement—for significant investment over the coming decade. The product of two years of intensive work and the engagement of thousands of alumnae, faculty, staff, and students, The Smith Design underscores Smith’s mission to “educate women of promise for lives of distinction.”

In the area of capital planning, Christ has advanced construction of a state-of-the-art, sustainably designed classroom and laboratory facility to be named Ford Hall, in recognition of its lead donor, the Ford Motor Company Fund. When completed in 2009, Ford Hall will be home to the college’s pioneering Picker Engineering Program as well as the departments of molecular biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and computer science.

Christ graduated with honors from Douglass College and received her doctorate from Yale University. As president, she has continued to teach, offering seminars on science and literature, and on the arts. In 2004, she was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in recognition of her accomplishments in higher education. In 2007, Yale University Graduate School presented Christ with its highest honor, the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, in recognition of her distinguished achievements in scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and public service.

John Connolly

John M. Connolly is Five College 40th Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at Smith College and director of the ethics program. He specializes in ancient and medieval conceptions of the good life, and is interested in using those conceptions to assess modern business ethics. He has been instrumental in bringing a greater focus on applied ethics to the Smith philosophy department in recent years, and has published essays and books on both medieval and modern philosophy.

Connolly has taught at Smith since 1973. From 1992 to 2002, he served in the college administration, including as dean of faculty, as Smith’s first provost, and as acting president (2001–02). For his accomplishments in these posts he was given the college’s John M. Greene Award at Commencement in 2002.

Connolly is a 1965 graduate (summa cum laude) of Fordham College. He received a BA and MA from Oxford University in 1967, and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard in 1971. He is married to an interfaith minister and has two Smith alum daughters.

Elizabeth Crowell ’93

Elizabeth Crowell has spent the past five years building her own business, a multichannel retail boutique selling antiques, home décor and specialty gifts called Sterling Place. Revenues have steadily grown year over year and the business now has two store locations in Brooklyn, as well as a Website. Sterling Place, co-owned with her husband and business partner, is built from their joint love of discovering and giving interesting, conversation-sparking gifts.

Prior to owning Sterling Place, Crowell spent the bulk of her career either working side by side with entrepreneurs to build their businesses or working in highly entrepreneurial company settings. She spent eight years, primarily in the online music industry, building strategic partnerships and marketing brands such as Music Boulevard, CDNOW, and Napster. She led marketing partnerships with well-known companies such as Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, and Gateway among others. Prior to entering the online industry, Elizabeth worked as an executive recruiter with a boutique firm specializing in senior level placements for Fortune 500 companies in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and consumer packaged goods industries.

In addition to owning her own business, Crowell is co-chair of the steering committee of the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District, which is in the process of establishing a nonprofit organization to market and advocate for the businesses along Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. She also serves on the board of the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association.

Crowell graduated cum laude from Smith and was special fund agent for her 15th Reunion and is now serving as vice president of her class. She enjoys traveling, especially adventure travel. She’s backpacked and mountaineered in Alaska, South America, and Africa, and has been SCUBA diving in Antarctic.

Mary Dickinson ’81

Mary E. Dickinson, is CEO of DF Indie Studios, a NYC based independent film finance and distribution company focused upon films budgeted at $4-8 million produced by: Jennifer Fox (Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Michael Clayton, Duplicity), Ridley and Tony Scott (Gladiator, Thelma and Louise, American Gangster), Ted Hope (The Savages, 21 Grams); BenderSpink (American Pie, History of Violence). She started out on Capitol Hill with US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She has been Indianapolis 500 winner Arie Luyendyck's agent. She restructured and ran micro-cap media companies Teton Gravity Research and XseeksY.com. Aligning the interests of her companies with major industry players is the key to her success. In 2000 she was named one of Silicon Alley's Women of the Year. She graduated from Smith with a degree in European studies and twelve varsity letters.

Eileen Fisher

Eileen Fisher began her work life as an interior designer. Getting dressed for work each day took so much effort. She thought about the uniform she had worn throughout high school, and it became the seed of a vision. “The company really started when I began seeing all these little pictures in my mind, these garments, and how they all would go together. It was a vision of simplicity,” she says.

In 1984, with $350 in the bank, she designed and introduced four basic pieces at a boutique show in New York City, where she received $3,000 in orders. At her second show, three months later, she expanded the line to eight pieces—and brought in $40,000 in orders. Eileen Fisher was born.

The original concept—high-quality, simple, comfortable women’s clothing—still defines the evolving line that now fills 42 Eileen Fisher stores and is sold in department and specialty stores across the United States and Canada.

Rita Foley ’75

Rita Foley, chair of the Pro Mujer Board of Directors, is a corporate director, retired Fortune 500 global president, and a committed leader in numerous organizations dedicated to improving the health and lives of women in developing countries.

Foley received the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)’s 2007 Award for Not-for-Profit Director of the Year. She was also honored with the 2006 United Nations Populations Fund Award for lifelong work with women and their health issues. She sits on the boards of publicly-traded PetSmart and Dresser Rand. She is also a director of the HealthCare Chaplaincy and is on the advisory boards of C2Media and Nina McLemore Inc. These appointments follow a very successful business career that culminated at MeadWestvaco as global president. Foley left this role in June 2006 to devote her time to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Proficient in four languages, she had led global business expansions throughout South America, Europe, and China. Prior to that, she worked in various executive roles in the software and computer industry. She began her career in England, working for Polaroid.

Foley graduated from Smith with honors in psychology and received her diploma from the University of Geneva. She graduated from INSEAD’S Aims program, and is a graduate of SEP (Stanford’s Executive Program).

Karen Rosenthal Gray ’78

Karen Rosenthal Gray is the director of stores and a member of the Leadership Forum for women’s clothing designer Eileen Fisher. In leading the stores, Gray’s role has been to foster an environment supportive of the company’s values and to ensure the quality of customer experience. Her responsibilities include store operations and retail marketing. In her nine years in this role she has supported the growth of retail from 16 to 41 stores. As a member of the cross-functional Leadership Forum, her responsibilities include a role in company leadership. Gray is also a member of the real estate team, which selects new store locations and leads the company’s new global initiative.

Gray came to Eileen Fisher 14 years ago following work in the financial services industry as well as women’s and children’s apparel. She received an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and a MPOD from Case Western Reserve University.

Kimberly Hess ’96

Kimberly Hess received an MBA in marketing from Rutgers University in a program that included a European marketing class at the École Supérieure de Commerce et Management in Tours, France. Her career began at New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Companies, and she moved to Chubb Personal Insurance (CPI) in 1998. She underwrote a $13 million book of CPI business for Marsh, Inc. offices and was later promoted to an underwriting analyst and appointed an underwriting officer of Chubb & Son. Her experience includes analyzing Latin American personal insurance markets as part of CPI’s international strategic development and leading the project team that introduced Chubb Employment Practices Liability to the personal lines marketplace. In 2008, she joined the board of the Chubb Partnership of Women. Kimberly has served Smith as an Alumnae Admission Coordinator and member of the NAAC board and Affinity & Special Interest Committee. She is the founder of SAMBA (Smith Alumnae with MBAs) and a member of 85 Broads, Alliance Française of Princeton, and the United Nations Association of New York. Her article, “How to Choose Your Undergraduate School,” appeared on the Forté Foundation’s Website in 2005.

At Smith, Hess majored in economics, with a minor in international relations.

Susan K. Jansen ’79

Susan K. Jansen retired from Lehman Brothers in June 2008. Prior to her retirement, she was managing director—global head of high yield and distressed research. She managed an award-winning team of 60 analysts. Jansen also served as a member of the firm’s commitment committee, a group responsible for approving risk commitments on debt financings. During her career at Lehman, Jansen was also a senior fixed income research analyst, recognized by Institutional Investor as an All-Star Analyst for more than five years.
Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Jansen was a principal at BT Alex Brown Inc., where she was responsible for fixed income research coverage of the retailing, lodging, restaurant, and consumer products sectors. Jansen began her career at Merrill Lynch, where she worked in the mergers and acquisitions/leveraged finance groups.

Jansen is currently a partner of Sage Capital Group, Inc., an investment management firm serving high net worth investors, foundations, and institutions. She also serves several nonprofit institutions in various capacities, including the Episcopal church and the League of Women Voters.
Jansen received a BA in economics from Smith and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Monique King-Viehland ’99

Monique King-Viehland is executive director of the Capital City Redevelopment Corporation in New Jersey. Before joining the CCRC, she was special assistant to Deputy Chief of Staff Jeannine LaRue in the governor’s office. In that role, she assisted the deputy chief of staff in the development, planning, and implementation of projects and initiatives that supported the governor’s community revitalization agenda in the city of Camden. She also served the administration as senior director of small- and medium-size business development with the governor’s Office of Economic Growth, where she led the development of the governor’s strategy to address the disparities between the numbers of minority- and women-owned businesses in the state versus those firms awarded contracts for state business. She was the chief architect behind Executive Order 34, which was signed in 2006 and commits the state to building an infrastructure to track and report dollars spent with minority- and women-owned firms.

King-Viehland has a wealth of experience in community and economic development. Prior to her work with the governor of New Jersey, she served as a consulting associate for Development Dimensions International and as director of housing for the Urban League of Pittsburgh. She was also a small-business owner and entrepreneur, as president and founder of E-Squared Consulting, a real estate development consulting firm, and as founder of Black Pittsburgh.com, a data warehouse of black-owned and operated businesses.

King-Viehland was also the recipient of Pittsburgh magazine’s “40 Under 40” award, which recognizes 40 individuals under 40 who are making a positive impact on the region’s development.

In addition to her Smith degree, Kind-Viehland has a master of science in public policy and management from the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon.

Rochelle (Shelly) Braff Lazarus ’68

Shelly Lazarus has been working, as she would say it, “In the business I love,” for more than three decades, almost all of that time at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. Rising through the ranks of account service, Lazarus has held positions of increasing responsibility in the management of the company, including president of O&M Direct North America, Ogilvy & Mather New York, Ogilvy North America, chief operating officer, and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide.

She is currently chair of the worldwide company. Lazarus started at Ogilvy at a time when the agency’s legendary founder, David Ogilvy, still walked the halls and personally preached that the purpose of advertising was to build great brands. Under Lazarus’s leadership, that essential mission has remained the centerpiece of the company’s philosophy, extending across regions and marketing disciplines, and attracting some of the world’s largest and most respected brands, including American Express, BP, Coca-Cola, IBM, Motorola, and Unilever among many others.

Lazarus has been a frequent industry honoree. Advertising Women of New York selected her as its Woman of the Year in 1994. She was honored by Women in Communications with their Matrix Award in 1995, was named Business Woman of the Year by the New York City Partnership in 1996, and Woman of the Year in 2002 by the Direct Marketing Association. She has appeared in Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business for ten years since the list’s inception in 1998. Lazarus was also the first woman to receive Columbia Business School’s Distinguished Leader in Business Award.

Lazarus serves on the boards of several corporate, philanthropic, and academic institutions: General Electric, Merck, New York Presbyterian Hospital, American Museum of Natural History, Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, World Wildlife Fund, and the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School, where she received her MBA in 1970. She served for five years as chair of the Board of Trustees of Smith College. She is a member of Advertising Women of New York; The Committee of 200; Council on Foreign Relations; The Business Council; Women's Forum, Inc.; and Deloitte & Touche Council for the Advancement of Women. She has also served as chair of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

Jane Nakagawa ’81

Jane Nakagawa is the global planning director for the Infiniti account at the advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. Her expertise is customer creation and market strategy. She is also a contributing writer on the topic of automotive culture and design for Edmunds.com.

Prior to joining Chiat, Nakagawa was the director of advanced planning and strategy for Nissan North America, where she was responsible for the annual product lineup and powertrain strategy. Most recently, she was named one of the top 50 people who made enduring contributions to Nissan’s 50 years in America by Automotive News.

Nakagawa graduated from Smith with a BA in fine art. She received a master of architecture from UCLA in 1985.

Lynn Sharp Paine ’71

Lynn Sharp Paine is a John G. McLean Professor at the Harvard Business School, where she is a member and former chair of the general management unit. She currently heads the leadership and corporate accountability group and teaches in the school’s Advanced Management Program.

Paine’s research focuses on the leadership and governance of companies that meld high ethical standards with outstanding financial results. Her book Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance (McGraw-Hill, 2003) was named one of the year’s Best Business Books by Library Journal and was noted as one of the top 10 business books by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. She has published more than 200 case studies and articles in a variety of periodicals, including the Harvard Business Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Philosophy and Public Affairs.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa and a summa cum laude graduate of Smith, Paine earned a doctorate in moral philosophy from Oxford University in 1974 and a law degree from the Harvard Law School in 1979. She is currently a faculty associate of Harvard University’s Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, a member of the Governing Board for the Center for Audit Quality, and a director of RiskMetrics Group. Since 1987, she has been a permanent member of the Henry Luce Foundation’s Luce Scholar Selection Panel.

Phyllis Cohen Rappaport ’68

Phyllis Cohen Rappaport is vice chair of the New Boston Fund, a real estate investment company, and chair of the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation, promoting leadership and innovative thinking in public policy, medical research, and art. She is co-founder of Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, a national public charity pursuing research that will lead to a prevention or cure for this disease. Recent work funded by this charity was named one of the top medical discoveries in 2008 by Time magazine and CNN. Her emphasis in both foundations includes keeping a laser-like focus on mission and continually evaluating results.

Rappaport serves on advisory boards to Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, and Harvard University’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government. She is a longtime trustee of the DeCordova Museum of Contemporary Art and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Prior to her current positions, Rappaport held management positions at a Fortune 50 high technology company and was an auditor specializing in banking and healthcare at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She was elected to public office, as school committee member, for eight years. She served on the Smith College Development Committee. She was a member of the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

Rappaport received an MBA in 1975 from Simmons College.

Claudia Slacik ’79

Claudia Slacik is the global head of client strategy for Citibank’s $10 billion Global Transactions Services Group as well as the head of its newly formed Restructuring Advisory Initiative. As a seasoned corporate finance professional with a breadth of international and domestic transaction, credit, risk, and management experience, Slacik is a member of the GTS Management Committee and is a senior credit officer.

From 2004 to 2007, Slacik was the global head of trade services and finance within GTS and was responsible for leading its successful restructuring during that time.

Prior to that assignment, Slacik was the group head of the Asset Based Finance Group within Citi’s Global Fixed Income Group.

Slacik has been with Citi since 1993.

Prior to joining Citibank, Slacik was vice president, strategic planning at World Color Press. With revenues in excess of $1 billion, the company’s managing partner was Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co.

Slacik began her career at Bankers Trust Company in June 1979.

Slacik is the co-chair of the board of directors of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Project in New York City. In 2008, Callen-Lorde had nearly 50,000 patient visits.

At Smith, Slacik majored in government and economics. She received her MBA from New York University as a participant in their executive MBA program. Additionally, Slacik is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute’s professional chef program.

Cornelia Mendenhall Small ’66

While at Smith, Cornelia Mendenhall Small majored in economics. She received an MA and MALD in economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in 1969. That same year, she joined the investment management firm of Scudder, Stevens & Clark as an economist, focusing on the analysis of global capital markets. Over her career, she held a number of management positions, including director of global equity investments and chief investment officer, and was a member of the firm’s board of directors. After retiring from the investment management business in 2000, she took up oil painting and studied at the National Academy of Design School from 2001 to 2005. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Fidelity Equity Funds, a member of the Investment Committee of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and a member of the board of directors of the Teagle Foundation. In 2002, she joined the Smith College Board of Trustees and became chair in 2008.

Betsy Stark ’78

Business Correspondent, ABC News

Betsy Stark is the business correspondent for ABC News. Her reports on the economy, Wall Street, business trends, and companies around the world are featured regularly on World News with Charles Gibson, Good Morning America, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC News Radio and ABC News Now.

Her recent reports have focused on the surge in energy prices, the real estate bubble, the growing risk of identity theft, the under funding of pensions, and the debate over Social Security reform. She covered the Martha Stewart trial and reported on the fallout from major corporate scandals, including Enron and Worldcom.

Stark’s coverage of “The Broken Pension Promise” earned the 2005 Business and Financial Journalism Emmy for reporting on a current news story. Her story “Motherhood on Madison Avenue: The Neil French Flap” was honored with a 2006 Gracie Award for hard news features from American Women in Radio and Television. In 2004, she was nominated for a Loeb Award for her coverage of rising oil prices and received an Emmy nomination for her reports on the impact of the Iraq war on the US economy.

Before joining ABC News in 1998, Stark worked at Dow Jones for 10 years, where she was correspondent and later senior producer of the weekly “Wall Street Journal Report.” In 1996, she was named anchor and editor of her own live, daily business news program, “Heard on the Street A.M.,” produced by Dow Jones for a local New York station. She also anchored its public affairs program, “Metro Journal,” which won an award for local political coverage in its first year.

Stark won an Emmy Award for her participation in ABC’s millennium coverage and a George Foster Peabody Award for her participation in the network’s coverage of 9/11.

Earlier in her career, as a documentary producer for "Inside Story," the PBS series on the media, she was honored with an Emmy Award for outstanding investigative reporting for her work on the CBS/Westmoreland trial.

Stark is the mother of two children, Ben and Sara, and lives in New York City.

Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76

Linda Chatman Thomsen is the former director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. She had been a member of the Commission’s Division of Enforcement staff for over ten years. She joined the staff in 1995 as an assistant chief litigation counsel. In 1997 she was named an assistant director and was named an associate director in 2000. She became the deputy director of the Division of Enforcement in 2002. In May 2005, she became the eighth director of the Division of Enforcement. Before joining the staff of the commission, Thomsen was in private practice and also served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. She received her bachelor’s degree in government from Smith and her law degree from Harvard University.

Wendy Markus Webb ’80

Wendy Markus Webb is the chief communications and investor relations officer for Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc., based in West Hollywood, a leader in live entertainment. She also serves on the board of directors of Jack in the Box, Inc., located in San Diego, where she is on the finance, governance, and nominating committees. She is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and the Los Angeles Organization of Women Executives (OWE).

Prior to her current position, Webb was executive director, The Walt Disney Company Foundation, and senior vice president, investor relations and shareholder services at The Walt Disney Company. Prior to Disney, Webb was an investment banker in New York City and London.

Webb graduated from Smith with a BA (honors) in English literature, having also spent her junior year at Harvard College and a summer at Trinity College, Oxford. Additionally, she received a master’s in business administration from Harvard University in 1984. Webb served on the Smith College Board of Trustees from 1998 through 2003, and presently is a member of Smith’s President’s Council.

Laura Weil ’79

Laura Weil, whose expertise is in specialty apparel retailing, is the chief executive officer for Urban Brands Inc. Until May 2006, she served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Ann Taylor Stores Corp., where she was responsible for all finance and accounting functions, global sourcing, information technology, merchandise planning and allocation, real estate, and store construction. Before joining Ann Taylor, Weil was chief financial officer of American Eagle Outfitters, where she was a key leader of the company’s growth in sales from $200 million in 1995 to more than $2 billion in 2005. At American Eagle, Weil was responsible for all financial, accounting, information technology, and planning and allocation areas as well as strategic planning. She served a critical role in the development and growth of ae.com as well as the overall development of the American Eagle brand. She also served as the chairperson of the American Eagle Foundation. Previously, Weil held senior executive positions with CIBC Oppenheimer, R.H. Macy & Co., and Lehman Brothers.

At Smith, Weil received a degree in art history and government. She received an MBA degree in finance and marketing from Columbia University in 1983.

JoAnne Lyons Wooten ’74

JoAnne Lyons Wooten is the president and chief executive officer of Women Work!, the national network for women’s employment, based in Washington, DC. Women Work! helps women enter, re-enter, and advance in the work place. Wooten is also a realtor with the Long & Foster Real Estate Company and a principal in The JBW Group, LLC, a private investment management company specializing in real estate projects.

Previously, Wooten served as executive director of the National Association of Black Journalists, as executive director of the Physical Therapy Association of Maryland, Inc., and as an administrative manager at the international law firms of Finley, Kumble & Wagner and Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc.

Wooten serves on the board of directors of the Alumnae Association of Smith College, as chair of the Affinity and Special Interest Committee, and is an active member of Black Alumnae of Smith College (BASC).

Wooten received a degree in government and African American studies from Smith. She has been married to Bill Wooten (Amherst College ’73) for 34 years and is a very proud mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother.