Spirit of Women in Business 2018
2018 Schedule
Anderson is the Director of External Media Relations at Kent State University where she provides leadership in developing content for both internal and external audiences. She helps develop messaging and writes stories that share Kent State’s vision and excellence with the world.
Before joining Kent State, Anderson was a television news reporter and anchor around the midwest and east coast. She began her career at the ABC affiliate in La Crosse, Wisconsin and later moved to Green Bay where she covered the Packer’s road to Super Bowl XXXI. Her career took her to the CBS affiliate in Omaha, Nebraska where she was trained in storm chasing and won an Associated Press award for flooding coverage. She later anchored and reported for WKYC in Cleveland and was named one of Cleveland Magazine’s “Most Interesting People.”
Anderson authored the Ohio chapter in Faces of Freedom Profiles of America’s Fallen Heroes: Iraq and Afghanistan. She also reported for FOX29 in Philadelphia while she earned a master’s degree in communication studies from West Chester University. She taught as an adjunct professor at West Chester and Kent State. She was also a lecturer at Lincoln University.
Sandra Volpe ’89
Senior vice president of strategic planning, communications and contractor relations for FedEx Ground
Volpe earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Kent State University and a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.
Volpe joined FedEx Ground in 2000 with more than 10 years of experience in financial planning and analysis. She was promoted to vice president of finance in 2007, and her extensive knowledge of the financial world led to her promotion to Vice President of Strategic Planning in 2012. She assumed her current role in 2013.
Liza Mundy
New York Times Bestselling Author
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Mundy is an award-winning reporter and has authored three books that have been featured on the New York Times bestsellers list. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Master of Arts in English literature from the University of Virginia.
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Panel Moderator: Debbie Buckeye, Office Administrator/Assistant to the President, Ace Boiler and Welding
Debbie Buckeye, owner of Buckeye Dance Steps, is pursuing new businesses for her Summit Road location while pursuing a new career in the manufacturing industry. She previously worked in the healthcare industry as a business manager and prior to that was a financial and corporate accounting supervisor in the building industry.
Buckeye earned an Executive MBA from Kent State University. She has created takeaways for mind and physical development, certified through Dance Masters of America. She is an outdoor advocate and enjoys several outdoor hobbies. She actively mentors current Executive MBA students and is a member and past president of the Kent State University EMBA Alumni board.
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Lisa Aurilio, chief operating officer, Akron Children's Hospital
Aurilio, MSN, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, is the chief operating officer at Akron Children’s Hospital. She oversees Professional and Support Services, the Department of Pediatrics, Patient Services, the Center for Operations Excellence, Surgical Sub-Specialty Practices and the Mahoning Valley enterprises.
Prior to this role, Aurilio served as the vice president of Patient Services and chief nursing officer. In this role, Lisa was the administrator for the Patient Services Division that includes the inpatient care units across two campuses, surgical services, emergency services, school health and the Home Care division.
Aurilio earned Master of Science and Bachelor’s degrees from the Kent State College of Nursing and a Master of Business Administration degree in the Kent State Executive MBA program. She was awarded the 2016 Diversity in Nursing Award from Modern Healthcare. She is a graduate of Leadership Akron and President of Akron Children’s Home Care Board.
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Rosalyn Harris, vice president - finance, operations and risk technology, PNC Bank
Harris is vice president of finance, operations and risk technology at PNC Bank. She earned an MBA and Bachelor’s degree in marketing from Kent State University.
Harris began her career in marketing at an international manufacturing organization where she worked in sales service, product support, marketing analytics, forecasting and marketing information systems. She has spent more than 25 years in various facets of information technology and five years managing IT in the healthcare industry. She led a project to for the convergence of voice, data and video networks and served as manager on the implementation of an electronic medical record system, leading a team in the deployment and support of a suite of clinical applications.
She currently manages a diverse staff of 25 professionals consisting of software engineers, application developer leads and lead business analysts within the Technology and Innovations group at PNC Bank. She is responsible for teams supporting 17 PNC applications under the finance, operations and risk lines of business for the bank.
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Karen Kaminski, senior vice president, human resources, TravelCenters of America
Kaminski, JD, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SC, is senior vice president of human resources at TravelCenters of America. In this role, she leads the HR function for more than 25,000 employees at 500+ locations in 43 states.
Prior to TravelCenters, Kaminski worked for Caesars Entertainment. She hired a human resources team to staff and train more than 1,600 new team members at Horseshoe Casino, Ohio’s first casino. She led the hiring and training of almost 900 more new employees at ThistleDown Racino. Prior to Caesars, Kaminski worked at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores where she helped lead and grow the HR function over a 12-year period. During two tenures with Jo-Ann, she championed training, ethics, workforce planning, store openings, policy and procedure development and labor relations.
Before originally joining Jo-Ann, she began her career at May Company Department Stores as a file clerk in HR and then joined Clark Refining & Marketing as employee relations manager. She worked at Duvin, Cahn & Hutton (now Littler Mendelson) while pursuing her juris doctorate degree. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Cleveland State University, a juris doctorate degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and an Executive MBA from Kent State University.
Sandra Volpe
Senior vice president of strategic planning, communications and contractor relations, FedEx Ground
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Volpe earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Kent State University and a Master of Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.
Volpe joined FedEx Ground in 2000 with more than 10 years of experience in financial planning and analysis. She was promoted to vice president of finance in 2007, and her extensive knowledge of the financial world led to her promotion to Vice President of Strategic Planning in 2012. She assumed her current role in 2013.
Volpe is active in the industry and community, serving on the Board of Directors for Republic Services, Inc., an industry leader in U.S. recycling and non-hazardous solid waste. She is also a member of The Conference Board and has served as Chair of the Board to the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Heart Association.
As an accomplished leader, Volpe attended the FedEx Executive Leadership Institute in 2003 and participated in the FedEx Excel Leadership Program in 2012. She has also been honored with the company’s most prestigious award, the Five Star Award, on three separate occasions, and the FedEx Ground Leadership Award twice. Volpe is this year’s Spirit of Women in Business Award winner.
Deborah Thomas-Nininger, founder of DTN Productions
Deborah Thomas-Nininger is the founder of DTN Productions International, a company that provides professional development training on all areas of international and domestic protocol specializing in "Reputation Management” and communication strategies. She brings over 20 years of business etiquette, communication and self-presentation expertise, rooted in behavioral science and successful human interaction.
Thomas-Nininger organized the international etiquette training for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and is a frequent subject of interviews, which often appear in publications both nationally and internationally.
Her first two books, Reputation Management – Building Your Brand and Tweetables for Life will be available spring 2018 with her MiniManners series to launch in the fall.
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Jan Focke, Senior Vice President, The Huntington National Bank
Focke leads a group of professional bankers providing financial solutions to owner-managed businesses in northeastern Ohio, with a focus on middle market lending.
In 2013, Focke successfully led FirstMerit’s acquisition and integration of Citizens Republic Bancorp for the Commercial Banking Segment. Her banking career in Cleveland spans many years. She has worked in large corporate, middle market and small business banking. At various points, she has led groups devoted to credit risk process, university relations, talent development and succession planning.
Focke holds an MBA from Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and a Bachelor’s degree in finance from Kent State University. She serves as chair, Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Play House. She is a steering committee member for Women in Transactions – Association for Corporate Growth, Cleveland chapter. She is a member of the Executive Women’s Leadership Forum and the Leadership Cabinet for Lake County YMCA. Focke sits on the Catalyst Committee at Lakeland Foundation. She is a member of The Holden Arboretum Council and CARTA, a scholarship program that benefits students attending Cleveland Institute of Art.
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Karen Lefton, owner, The Lefton Group, LLC
Lefton owns The Lefton Group, LLC, a boutique law firm that focuses on helping businesses grow without drama in the workplace. She frequently serves as outside general counsel to entities that do not have in-house counsel, providing creative and strategic ways to focus on their core businesses while complying with myriad federal, state and local laws. Her clients are for-profit and non-profit, service and manufacturing, privately held and growing.
Before starting her own firm in February 2014, Lefton was a partner at Brouse McDowell for nearly six years. She joined Brouse after serving for 11 years as in-house counsel at The Akron Beacon Journal/Ohio.com. Lefton’s first career was as a journalist, and she held a number of positions ranging from reporter to city editor in the newsroom at the Beacon Journal before taking on legal responsibilities and ultimately becoming general counsel.
Lefton earned a B.A. from Miami University and a J.D. from the University of Akron’s School of Law. She is enrolled in the International Executive MBA program at Ashland University and will earn an MBA in July 2018. Lefton is licensed to practice in Ohio state courts, federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. She has argued cases at the Ohio Supreme Court and at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. -
Panel Moderator - Cathy DuBois, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Administration, Kent State College of Business Administration
DuBois continues to publish and present her research through international journals and conferences. She has consulted for a range of organizations and worked for a multinational organization. DuBois received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. -
Janet White - Founder of Berkshire Group, Inc.
Janet Kendal White founded the Berkshire Group, Inc., in 1987, a WOSB, WBENC certified, Ohio-based national consulting and training firm with a focus on leadership development and strategic planning. Over the past 30 years, Berkshire Group has developed a framework for organizational change and organic growth which has been successfully implemented in a broad array of settings, including Manufacturing, Information Systems, Biotech, Human Resources, Financial Services, and Health Care, as well as a variety of non-profit institutions.
Kendall White founded Berkshire Group to make a difference, and has a proven track record of helping organizations develop or clarify their vision and purpose. From its inception, Berkshire Group’s primary purpose has been to equip leaders in organizations of all disciplines to meet their current goals and prepare for the future. She is passionate about training leaders at every level of an organization to be effective at setting and accomplishing goals, solving strategically significant problems, running effective meetings and building and maintaining internal and external relationships that produce positive results.
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Sharlene Ramos-Chesnes, co-founder, president and Chief Executive Officer of the InterChez
Ramos-Chesnes is the co-founder, president and Chief Executive Officer of the InterChez, based in Stow, Ohio. Ramos-Chesnes has overseen the growth of InterChez from a start-up to an industry leader in domestic and international logistics.
Ramos-Chesnes is a Kent State University graduate and has successfully completed certificate coursework from Leadership Cleveland, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Dartmouth College’s Tuck Executive School.
Prior to becoming a major shareholder of InterChez, Ramos-Chesnes was an educator and department head at a private school. She has held senior level positions in both the non-profit and for-profit business sectors, where she has been instrumental in the growth of the company or the expansion of services.
Ramos-Chesnes has been recognized by the Thurgood Marshall Civil and Human Rights Commission, People to People Leadership, Ohio’s Commission on Spanish Speaking Affairs, the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, KSU Latino Networking Caucus, National Association of Professional Women, Key4Women, The Alzheimer’s Association and Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center.
In 2016, Ramos Chesnes served as the Kent State University President’s Ambassador, where she focused on diversity and inclusion within the organization and its students. Most recently, she was inducted into the Crain’s Women of Note Class of 2017 and was honored with the Advocacy for Educational Excellence Award by the Portage County Branch of the NAACP.
Bec Pfeifer
Central market leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
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In her role at PwC, Pfeifer is responsible for providing leadership and driving PwC’s people strategy across the market. Pfeifer is a certified executive coach and supports leaders to enhance leadership skills and achieve their goals.
Pfeifer’s interactive presentation will focus on recruiting and retaining millennial employees while providing insights on the importance of adaptation with a multi-generational workforce. Pfeifer will also share supplemental findings from “PwC’s NextGen: A Global Generational Study.”
Read More About Luncheon Speaker
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Jayne Juvan, Co-Chair of Corporate Governance Practice Group; Chair of Private Equity Practice Group; Partner, Tucker Ellis LLP
Juvan is a partner, co-chair of the Corporate Governance Practice Group, and chair of the Private Equity Practice Group at Tucker Ellis LLP. She also serves as vice chair of the American Bar Association's Corporate Governance Committee.
Juvan has a broad legal practice that touches upon a variety of disciplines and advises investors, boards of directors and management teams on corporate transactions, regulatory compliance and fiduciary duties. She frequently can be found in the boardroom with directors as they make highly impactful, potentially transformative and confidential decisions. She is also often tapped to assist corporate boards to maximize effectiveness and institute best practices.
Juvan stays abreast of emerging boardroom issues, macroeconomic and financial factors that impact global deal activity and the potential influence of geopolitical events on corporate strategy. A frequent and sought-after writer and speaker featured in the Harvard Business Review and Forbes Media for her unique use of social media as an attorney, she covers the daily developments in these areas on Twitter at twitter.com/jaynejuvan. Named to the Ethisphere “Attorneys Who Matter” list as well as the Crain’s Cleveland Business “Forty Under 40” list, Juvan is a co-founder of her firm’s blog, Lingua Negoti, and has written for Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.
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Tia Atchison, Manager, Marketing & Communications, Tucker Ellis LLP
Atchison has spent the past 20 years leading marketing and communications initiatives in the legal and architecture/engineering industries. She has extensive experience in social media campaigns, public reputation programs, content marketing, brand awareness, website development and digital and analog collateral management.
After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in magazine journalism and French from Kent State University, she spent time traveling abroad before landing in south Florida. She spent four years as a book editor at CRC Press in Boca Raton before moving into the marketing department of an architecture firm. Moving to Richmond, VA, she began working in the marketing department of one of the world’s largest law firms. She now manages MarComm for a large law firm in downtown Cleveland.
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Julie Brandle, President, Metis Construction Services
Brandle is the president and a founder of Metis Construction Services, a female-owned commercial general contractor located in Kent, Ohio focusing on interior renovations, ground-up construction and facilities maintenance throughout northeast Ohio. With over 20 years experience in sales, marketing and public relations, Brandle oversees these areas of expertise for Metis along with being an integral part of the ownership team that designs and manages the overall business strategy for Metis.
Brandle volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and the Girl Scouts of northeast Ohio, where she is a recipient of the 2015 Women of Distinction Award. She serves on the leadership boards of CREW-Commercial Real Estate Women, Rebuilding Together - Portage County, Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce and Greater Akron Chamber Small Business Council, Streetsboro Chamber, Kent State University Construction Management Department Advisory Board, Portage Development Board, COSE, and Rotary Club of Akron where she is currently serving as president. She is a 2014 graduate of both Leadership Portage and the Goldman Sachs 10k small business program. -
Facilitator: Veronica Cook-Euell, Supplier Diversity Program Manager, Kent State University
Cook-Euell is the supplier diversity, program manager for Kent State University where she is responsible for developing strategies to increase minority business representation in securing contracts, driving supplier diversity initiatives and serving as advocate and a liaison for diverse suppliers.
She has over 20 years of experience in diversity and inclusion, working in various leadership positions in federal and local government and the non-profit sector. She is a recipient of the Kent State University HARAMBE Award for her Outstanding Creative Contribution in Inclusion in 2017, Asian American Commerce Group Supplier Diversity Leadership Award in 2016, the Women of Power Award from the Akron Urban League in 2015 and the Ohio Minority Supplier Development Council “Advocate of the Year Award” in 2014.
In 2012, she received the President’s Excellence Award from Dr. Lefton, president of Kent State, for her outstanding achievements and performance in her role as supplier diversity program manager. In 2014, she led Kent State University in receiving the “Best-In-Class for Supplier Diversity” by the Commission on Economic Inclusion in northeast Ohio.
Cook-Euell earned an Executive MBA from Kent State University in 2015, a M.A. degree in psychology specializing in diversity management from Cleveland State University and a master’s degree from Kent State University, M.Ed. in special education with specialization in American sign language. -
Sharlene Ramos-Chesnes, co-founder, president and Chief Executive Officer of the InterChez
Ramos-Chesnes is the co-founder, president and Chief Executive Officer of the InterChez, based in Stow, Ohio. Ramos-Chesnes has overseen the growth of InterChez from a startup to an industry leader in domestic and international logistics.
Ramos-Chesnes is a Kent State University graduate and has successfully completed certificate coursework from Leadership Cleveland, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Dartmouth College’s Tuck Executive School.
Prior to becoming a major shareholder of InterChez, Ramos-Chesnes was an educator and department head at a private school. She has held senior level positions in both the non-profit and for-profit business sectors, where she has been instrumental in the growth of the company or the expansion of services.
Ramos-Chesnes has been recognized by the Thurgood Marshall Civil and Human Rights Commission, People to People Leadership, Ohio’s Commission on Spanish Speaking Affairs, the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, KSU Latino Networking Caucus, National Association of Professional Women, Key4Women, The Alzheimer’s Association and Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center.
In 2016, Ramos Chesnes served as the Kent State University President’s Ambassador, where she focused on diversity and inclusion within the organization and its students. Most recently, she was inducted into the Crain’s Women of Note Class of 2017 and was honored with the Advocacy for Educational Excellence Award by the Portage County Branch of the NAACP. -
Bobbie Bell-Bartholomew, program administrator, Equal Opportunity Division of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS)
Bell-Bartholomew has served the Equal Opportunity Division of the Ohio Department of Administrative Services (DAS) for 20 years. She served as the assistant to the deputy director post for more than 16 years before her recent reassignment to management of the research, reporting and recruitment unit. The mission of the unit is to ensure equal opportunity to government contracting by consistently providing accurate and timely program data for the Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) and Encouraging Diversity, Growth and Equity (EDGE) programs. Her duties also include assisting the Business Certification and Compliance Unit with promotion of the MBE, EDGE and newly established Veteran-friendly Business Enterprise (VBE) programs. She has assisted with more than 30 MBE outreach events, including the event planning of the Ohio Business and Career Expo at the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus.
Bell-Bartholomew also serves as the liaison to the Ohio Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission, coordinating the commission’s MLK commemorate celebration held each January and its statewide oratorical contest held each April.
Before joining DAS, she worked for the Home Energy Assistance Program of the Ohio Development Services Agency for five years.
Bell-Bartholomew has received two DAS Superior Accomplishment Awards and the 2015 OhioMBE Top Advocate Award.
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Becca Hollis, RYT-200, Lionheart Yoga, LLC
Hollis RYT-200, M.Ed. is owner of Lionheart Yoga, LLC. She leads yoga, mindfulness and meditation practices for schools, businesses and yoga studios in northeast Ohio.
Hollis began practicing yoga and meditation about 15 years ago and is registered with Yoga Alliance. In addition to teaching yoga, she has over 11 years of experience in sales and management at local businesses as well as national corporations such as Hallmark, Nine West and Gymboree. She left sales in 2007 to complete her M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration and later served as coordinator of recruitment and retention for Kent State University’s College of the Arts.
In this role, Hollis developed recruitment programs with an unprecedented 90%+ retention rate. Her background in sales and higher education inform her current work teaching yoga. Hollis brings mindfulness programs to schools and businesses to help people develop a practice that works with their lifestyle. She meets students and professionals where they are on their journey and provides tools they can use in everyday life.
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Ann Durr, owner, Yoga to Zen, LLC
Durr worked for more than 25 years in the banking industry rising to become president and COO of Valley Savings Bank where she was a member of the executive committee, loan review committee, chair of the marketing committee and chair of compliance council. When Valley Savings Bank merged with Westfield Bank in August of 2014, she stayed on with the newly created bank as a member of their executive team.
In 2016, Durr shifted her career from banking to yoga. She completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training and started her own yoga business: Yoga to Zen, LLC. Durr has collaborated with area businesses to offer specialized yoga events and teaches yoga in Hudson and Akron. More recently, Durr became a certified Yoga for 12 Steps and works with individuals recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. The blend of her extensive banking experience and yoga training brings a special perspective to stress management and mindfulness in the workplace and in guiding others how to increase productivity and fulfillment in their lives.
Philanthropy and community involvement are also important to Durr: she is a trustee for Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, a voting member of the Ritchie Foundation and an alumna of Leadership Akron and Leadership Akron Next.
Location & Directions
- The 2018 Spirit of Women in Business Conference takes place in the Kent State University Student Center Ballroom, located on the 2nd level of the building.
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