Profile Magazine Q1/24

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The Sum of Its Parts MacLean-Fogg is dedicated to world-class quality. For Kristin Malbasa, it’s employee well-being. Together, you have the organization’s century of excellence. P20

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PROFILE

Issue

The Identity

Building an inclusive workplace culture starts with leaders who are unafraid to be authentic. Meet five executives whose diverse backgrounds, resilience, and individuality drive the connections to their work and teams.

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Marco DeThomasis

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Robin Villareal, Gila River Resorts & Casinos

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Christina Plhak, Freeman Company

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Frank Wilson, Maricopa Community Colleges

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Cover: Cass Davis

Kristin Malbasa, MacLean-Fogg

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P41 Survive and Thrive

Christina Plhak knew that “making it through” the pandemic wasn’t enough—instead, she helped Freeman Company flourish

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Strategic Education’s Khary Hodge believes great chemistry among work teams stems from understanding what makes people tick

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Glass-Smashing History

Lisa Botz became the first female CHRO of two separate companies. Now, she’s increasing leadership roles for women and people of color at EIS.

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For Her People

Raquel Buari and Four Winds Casino are providing safe entertainment to patrons while improving the lives of the Pokagon Tribe

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In Every Issue Editor’s Letter P7 Index P85

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Ella Gagiano (Plhak), Peter Ringenberg (Buari), Disney Fine Art Photography (Hodge), Courtesy of EIS Inc (Botz)

Next Gen Management

PROFILE

On the Cover With nearly twenty-five years at MacLean-Fogg under her belt, Kristin Malbasa is the embodiment of positive change in action

Cass Davis

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CREATIVE

CORPORATE

Editorial Director Frannie Sprouls

CEO & Publisher Pedro A. Guerrero President, Group Publisher Kyle Evangelista Chief of Staff Jaclyn Gaughan

Managing Editor Melaina K. de la Cruz Senior Editor Brittany Farb Gruber Editor Michele Cantos Garcia Staff Writers Noah Johnson Billy Yost Contributing Writers Frank DiMaria Peter Fabris Will Grant Natalie Kochanov Karen Schwartz Art Director Anastasia Andronachi Designers Rebecca Kang Arturo Magallanes Photo Manager & Video Director Cass Davis

SALES Senior Director, Sales Hannah Tanchon Director, Sales Onboarding Shannon Borner Enterprise Sales Executive Stuart Ziarnik Lead Recruiter, Guerrero Search James Ainscough Senior Director, Corporate Partnerships & DEI Solutions Krista Horbenko Director, Talent Acquisition & Engagement Haylee Himel Talent Acquisition Managers Josie Amidei Jordyn Gauger Content & Advertising Managers Stephani Bakus Ashley Burt John Brundage Nina Patel Kayla Plastiak Julia Rivero Tayla Stuttley

Contributing Photo Editor Sarah Joyce

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AUDIENCE & ENGAGEMENT VP, Hispanic Division Head of Audience & Engagement Vianni Lubus Director, Events Jill Ortiz Community Engagement & Communications Manager Cristina Merrill Social Media Manager Suleidys Tellez

OPERATIONS Chief Operating Officer Tere Pérez Lobatón VP, Finance David Martinez Director, Circulation Stacy Liedl Staff Accountant Natallia Kamenev Head Developer Jose Reinaldo Montoya Senior Director, Client Operations Cheyenne Eiswald Account Manager Abigail Stern Senior Manager, Client Services Rebekah Pappas Manager, Client Services Brooke Rigert Communications Coordinator, Creative Santiago Giordano

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Subscriptions + Reprints For a free subscription, please visit profilemagazine.com/subscribe. Printed in China. Reprinting of articles is prohibited without permission of Guerrero, LLC. For reprint information, contact Stacy Liedl at stacy@guerreromedia.com.

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From the Editor Belonging isn’t always easy. Whether you are part of the LGBTQ community, a person of color, or background that differs from the rest, it can be tough to navigate a world that prioritizes standardization, especially in the workplace.

Identity is a lot of things—your gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity. It factors in your educational history and résumé.

The thing about building an inclusive workplace culture is that you don’t always need to be in HR to do it. Some HR professionals will tell you that themselves. Any leader can guide this charge—especially if they’re unafraid to be authentic. For this issue, we’ve handpicked five executives, some in HR and some in IT, who demonstrate how their personal identities and perspectives have helped them find new ways to connect with their people and encourage them to be themselves.

Kristin Malbasa, MacLean-Fogg’s executive vice president of HR and our cover star, is someone I had the pleasure of meeting in person at her office in Mundelein, Illinois.

Photographer Cass Davis and Art Director Anastasia Andronachi teamed up for Kristin’s photoshoot, and I tagged along to assist where needed. I figured this would mostly entail holding up lighting equipment and fetching sodas—which it did—but very quickly I found myself bonding with Kristin over our shared love of scary movies.

“What are your top five favorite horror movies?” was the first question Kristin had for me after logistics were established. We swapped recommendations and joked around with poses in between the gorgeous portraits Cass captured one by one. Kristin gave us a rundown on the family business’ intriguing legacy and showed us around its headquarters, which are situated in a massive farmhouse on the property where the company’s original plant opened in 1965.

Making people feel comfortable is a necessary skill for any good HR leader to have, and it’s one of Kristin’s inherent qualities. As Cass, Anastasia, and I departed from MacLean-Fogg’s headquarters later that afternoon, we agreed: Kristin exemplifies this issue’s feature section perfectly. There was no question who would be on cover—Profile’s last cover, in fact.

Our sixtieth issue marks the end of our print era and the beginning of our digital future.

We’re expanding our reach to bring more stories to more people with incredible graphics, digitized covers, and behind-the-scenes videos that we couldn’t do in print. By going fully online, we’ll be able to keep pace with each rapidly changing industry that we feature, and Profile can be part of that evolution.

We hope to see you there.

Sheila Barabad Sarmiento

Melaina K. de la Cruz Managing Editor

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TA L E N T What is a company without those who lead it? Executives provide their blueprint for cultivating a successful career.

Elizabeth Miller, Marqeta

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Chad Walker, Duravant

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Scaling the Business— at a Profit To enable Marqeta’s rapid growth, Elizabeth Miller implements solutions that speed time to revenue and create enough return on investment to fund her team multiple times over

By N O A H J O H N S O N

Scan the QR code to be taken to the web story.

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Elizabeth Miller’s path to becoming a legal operations leader began well before she even knew the field existed.

In her formative years, she made habits out of staying curious, paying attention to detail, and finding the best way to do things. Those values set her up for success right out of college in an advertising business office.

During her first week in the job, she looked at her company’s metrics and found them troubling. “A significant portion of our invoices were in dispute, our payments

“My teams have all funded themselves many times over, sometimes on a single deal.”

ELIZ ABETH MILLER

Sunshine Harmon

TA L E N T

Elizabeth Miller

VP and Head of Legal Operations Marqeta

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“If we create standard preapproved templates that remove attorneys from the review process, then they can focus on higher impact, higher strategy work, and that leads to improved job satisfaction.”

ELIZ ABETH MILLER

were typically late, and we weren’t happy with the advertisement placement we were getting,” Miller recalls. “It was obvious that we needed to align on expectations with our advertisers, so I drafted billing guidelines.

Our advertising exposure, metrics, and relationships immediately improved. It’s funny to me now because implementing billing guidelines is legal operations 101.”

This gave Miller a sneak peek into what she’d one day become an expert in: helping organizations identify gaps and take practical steps toward filling them.

After a progression of finance roles, she landed in the legal department at Boston Scientific and saw an opportunity to make a much bigger impact.

“I was able step back and see that nobody oversaw the scope of the department other than the general counsel and his focus was managing risk and strategizing our legal matters,” Miller explains.

She brought it to the attention of the GC, who tasked her with writing a job description for a role that could address the challenges Miller pointed out. “That part was easy, but I didn’t know what to call it,” she says, chuckling. “Google suggested ‘legal operations’ and that was the first time I had heard that term.”

Miller is now in her third head of legal operations role at Marqeta, where she’s worked since 2022.

In the same way that her company brings innovation and efficiency to card issuing

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and payment processing, Miller drives innovation and efficiency in its legal department and throughout the organization. She partners cross-functionally to implement the strategic vision and solutions that speed time to revenue and enable scalability in a rapidly growing business.

Her projects include optimizing support, functionality, automation, and standardization of a poorly adopted contracts tool; implementing an artificial intelligence-enabled repository to provide visibility into contract commitments; and implementing a workflow automation tool and redesigned vendor management process with an integrated instant NDA that reduced cycle time by 53 percent while strengthening controls.

Her team also automated the legal case intake, assignment, closure, and work distribution visualization processes. And, of course, there’s the billing guidelines. Miller automated the legal fee accrual and rate enforcement processes, eliminating unapproved rate increases which in itself funds her entire team.

Today, the department is focused on creating more self-service capabilities to take attorneys out of certain review processes. “If we create standard preapproved templates that remove attorneys from the review process, then they can focus on higher impact, higher strategy work, and that leads to improved job satisfaction,” she says.

TA L E N T

Ryan Pettey

“Elizabeth Miller is a powerful thought leader in the legal operations community, and we were thrilled to get an opportunity to work with her once again through her role at Marqeta,” says Matt Spanos, global director of enterprise growth at Mitratech.

“We continue to collaborate closely on identifying additional processes that are ripe for innovation, leveraging TAP to provide immediate value through workflow automation and digital transformation.”

Miller ’s perspective on identifying opportunities is people-centered. “There is always a department or company priority— risk reduction, cost control, scalability—but it’s also important to ask the team about their pain points and aim to alleviate them,” she says. “This is a good indicator of tasks ripe for automation, outsourcing, or making self-service, but it also builds engagement.

We spend a lot of time working—it should be fun and rewarding.”

Her approach is informed by her time at Boston Scientific and Dolby, where her work revolved around vendor management, legal technology, budget, value improvement, metrics and reporting, project management, communications, and events. In those roles, she had to learn to build relationships and gain trust.

“When I started out in this role, I couldn’t find anyone doing something similar. It’s exciting how much legal operations has grown in the past few years and how much this community leverages each other. And it makes sense; implementing legal ops is a no brainer,” she says. “My teams have all funded themselves many times over, sometimes on a single deal.”

In addition to her leadership role at Marqeta, Miller is on the advisory board for two legal operations communities and participates in many others. In fact, her Dolby team was even a 2021 finalist for ALM’s “Most Innovative Legal Operations Team.”

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Forge a New Legal Path After his first year as Duravant’s inaugural general counsel, Chad Walker reflects on what drives him in this challenging role

By W I L L G R A N T

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TA L E N T

Chad Walker has never been a company’s first general counsel. He’s held GC roles at larger companies such as Morton Salt, where he was also vice president and corporate secretary. Walker joined Duravant in June 2022, and while the company was founded in 2013, it had no internal legal function until he came on board.

Now, it’s Walker’s to build as Duravant’s senior vice president and general counsel.

“This is an opportunity to create my own path,” he says. “I’ve been part of a mega-legal department, I’ve built out a legal department from a tiny team and now, at the moment, it’s just me. Let’s see what we can do.”

Walker has the experience, but he gives himself progressively complex situations in which he must find a way to flourish. Had he not done this a few times over, there might be room for concern.

Walker’s longest tenure thus far was nine-and-a-half years under the golden

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arches of McDonald’s, where he was promoted every other year—all the way up to US assistant general counsel. He was surrounded by some of the sharpest legal and business minds, leaders, and lawyers whose passion for their work left a lasting mark on the future GC. “McDonald’s was my entry into corporate America, working for one of the most recognizable brands on the planet,” Walker says.

“The size and scale of that global company was an incredible place to build relationships, learn the business, and see incredible leadership in action.”

When Walker transitioned to Morton Salt in 2015, it was with the intention of taking over for a GC who had been with the organization for over two decades. At the time, Morton’s CEO was looking for some new blood who could manage legal and compliance while reaching further across the organization to connect directly with the company’s business. It was how Walker was used to working already.

“This is an opportunity to create my own path.”

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Chad Walker

SVP and General Counsel Duravant

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Rob Hart

TA L E N T

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“A lot of what I’m building here is being done for the first time, and so while you’re looking to provide value for the business, you’re also trying to educate the organization about your role.”

C H A D WA L K E R

The challenge at Morton was building out a legal team that began as just him and one other lawyer. While expanding the team, Walker learned how to effectively manage outside counsel, a skill that would be critical for his next role.

Duravant is Walker’s chance to do it all again, and with even fewer nets. He arrived at Duravant with no legal department, no infrastructure—even outside counsel billing was relegated to other parts of the business.

One year has gone by in an instant, and Walker’s efforts continue at high speed.

The learning curve for both Walker and his company has been a steep one.

“Duravant never had a GC, and there was no lead to follow,” he explains. “A lot of what I’m building here is being done for the first time, and so while you’re looking to provide value for the business, you’re also trying to educate the organization about your role.”

Walker says it’s an extremely novel proposition: make a case for every idea and spend, while also helping the broader organization understand exactly what value he provides. This is not a normal GC role, but that’s the challenge that attracted the leader in the first place.

Along with building out the entire legal function, he’s also helping to build out Duravant’s environmental, social, and

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governance (ESG) strategy. One of the company’s owners, the Carlyle Group, has a well-established ESG team in place that has been especially helpful in helping Walker begin Duravant’s own journey.

“We’re working to engrain ESG into our DNA,” the GC says. “That starts with KPIs, reporting, and then building on that performance. We’ve put in a lot of building blocks, and part of my job is to keep that momentum going. Given we have sixteen different operating companies, that’s a lot of momentum to drive.”

This might read as a nightmare scenario for lawyers unaccustomed to building from the ground up. Walker, with the exception of support from his network of outside counsel, is a one-man army at present. But the GC seems undeterred. To him, it’s simply part of the process, a process of which very few people get the opportunity to experience the early stages.

Walker still finds time outside this challenging role to dedicate to his children’s activities. If he’s not building out a legal department, he can be seen on the sideline of his kids’ games. He says it keeps him young, and it’s a good thing, because his current calendar seems full for the foreseeable future.

Duravant will be Walker’s latest success.

It’s just going to take some time.

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We’re proud to work with Chad Walker and the talented team at Duravant.

Congratulations to Chad on his achievements and his recognition by Profile Magazine.

Practicing Law in the U.S., Europe and Asia for over 75 Years clearygottlieb.com

The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden Come The Identity Issue The Iden as You The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden The Identity Issue The Iden F E AT U R E : I D E N T I T Y

Are

Meet five executives whose diverse identities are intrinsic parts of their leadership strategies, vision, and the ways they connect

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ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue ntity Issue The Identity Issue F E AT U R E : I D E N T I T Y

Kristin Malbasa, MacLean-Fogg

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Marco DeThomasis

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Robin Villareal, Gila River Resorts & Casinos

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Christina Plhak, Freeman Company

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Frank Wilson, Maricopa Community Colleges

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Scan the QR code to be taken to the web story.

Staying True While Changing Through How Kristin Malbasa aids constant HR evolution at MacLean-Fogg

By B I L LY Y O S T

Photos by C A S S D AV I S

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F E AT U R E : I D E N T I T Y

Kristin Malbasa EVP of HR

MacLean-Fogg

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“I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that there are a lot of parallels in dealing with adults and children—at the end of the day, they’re both learners.”

Kristin Malbasa Kristin Malbasa may not have gotten her undergrad in human resources, but she might have gotten the next best thing: elementary education. The executive vice president of HR at MacLean-Fogg initially assumed she’d spend a career in teaching, helping mold early learners. Despite her career change and undeniable success in HR, those early lessons still come in handy.

“My first job after I decided to transition in my career was doing what amounted to adult education for business units across MacLean-Fogg,” the EVP explains. “It was a chance to combine the knowledge I had accumulated in teaching and apply it in a new way. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to hear that there are a lot of parallels in dealing with adults and children—at the end of the day, they’re both learners.”

It’s not meant as a slight, and the EVP’s understanding laugh makes it clear. The fulfillment she’s gotten after her career turn includes more than twenty-three years at the company where she initially started as an intern, and now she’s in the C-suite. It’s

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“We’ve been able to rely on the same values that we’ve maintained since 1925. . . . We keep evolving, but we’re able to stay true to our values.”

Kristin Malbasa

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where Malbasa has had the opportunity to take on new roles and new challenges—all within the MacLean-Fogg umbrella.

Over those two decades, Malbasa has repeatedly helped a company that’s almost a century old continue evolving. The family-owned company is on its fourth generation of leadership, a rare accomplishment. To Malbasa, it makes a world of difference.

“We’ve been able to rely on the same values that we’ve maintained since 1925,” she says. “When we first began, we were in railroads and automotive. In the eighties, we added the electric utility industry and we’re back again to predominantly automotive. We keep evolving, but we’re able to stay true to our values. I think that’s part of the reason you see people staying with the organization for so long, myself included.”

The HR team functions with the assumption that in taking chances, failures are

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inevitable. Ongoing collaboration and training build in the psychological safety for her team to continue to be willing to move on their new ideas and take appropriate chances to help MacLean-Fogg grow.

Outside of HR, Malbasa’s team takes great lengths to keep their best performers. All employees have a career path at MacLean-Fogg, which offers vast opportunities for growth and provides resources to capture its team members’ career and development goals. “It’s also worth noting that taking care of our team’s mental health is more important than ever,” Malbasa explains. “This is why we also offer mental health and wellness benefits that make it easy for our employees to get high-quality support when they need it.

“I want to make sure that we continue to have leaders in our organization that prioritize building psychological safety, creating relationships with their employees, and

F E AT U R E : I D E N T I T Y

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“I want to make sure that we continue to have leaders in our organization that prioritize building psychological safety, creating relationships with their employees, and creating an environment that no one dreads coming into every day.”

Kristin Malbasa

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USI Honors Kristin Malbasa EVP, Human Resources

MacLean-Fogg Recognizing Your Passion, Innovation, & Leadership.

creating an environment that no one dreads coming into every day,” she continues. “That feeling makes your whole life miserable, and we go to great lengths to make this a place our people enjoy spending their workday.”

The secret sauce is communication, Malbasa says. As the company continues to change, so do job expectations, and that can create legitimate unrest and worry for a workforce. That’s why the EVP says it’s imperative to openly, honestly, and transparently communicate about the ways the company continues to evolve.

It might mean more education, more training, and a willingness to embrace a new challenge, but it’s evident that the HR team will always go the extra mile to keep those who continue to stay true to the values of the organization.

Malbasa is an exemplary reflection of those ideals. The teacher who had the foresight to know that she needed a drastically different career has achieved that pivot at the highest possible levels. She reinvented what she could be, and she’s helping all those at MacLean-Fogg do the same for themselves and for their company.

“ The Cheesier,

We are Proud to Partner with MacLean-Fogg.

The Better”

Kristin Malbasa loves a cup of coffee in the morning, spending time with her kids, and being outside in the morning while she plans her day. But if you really want to know Malbasa, ask her about her favorite scary movie.

At USI, we combine proprietary analytics, broad experience and national resources to custom-fit an employee benefit program that meets your needs.

“I love silly horror movies,” she admits.

“The cheesier, the better. To me, it’s fun, sometimes it’s intense, and it always makes me feel a range of emotions— anxiety, enjoyment, relief, and even a little relaxation.”

David Madej SVP, Employee Benefits david.madej@usi.com 847.542.8914

For the uninitiated, Malbasa suggests what could be a holy trinity of horror: Child’s Play, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Friday the 13th. Some of these are fun, some are suspenseful, but they’re all a great way to spend a Friday night. Take it from a bona fide horror enthusiast.

Employee Benefits Risk Management Personal Risk Programs Retirement Consulting

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Scan the QR code to be taken to the web story.

The

New Frontier for HR

With thoughtful new approaches to cultural transformation, Marco DeThomasis goes beyond the conventions of “traditional” HR using head, heart, and hands

By B I L LY Y O S T

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Marco DeThomasis is ready to write the next chapter of HR. The organization that this executive will join will find his approach refreshing, appropriately provocative, and value creating. Together, they will answer the question: “Is what we’ve been doing for fifty years in HR going to serve us going forward?”

“Today’s relentless business growth and expansion, our borderless 24/7 global economy, and having five generations in our workforce at one time—just to name a few—all have contributed to the speed and evolution of businesses and [forces] them to constantly innovate and do things differently to remain competitive,” DeThomasis says. “Tackling these real business issues

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with the right HR mindset, partnership, and foresight is key moving forward.

“I want my HR career to be able to leave a legacy,” adds DeThomasis, whose HR and business career has spanned industries including biotech, finance, professional services, and private equity. All have offered unique perspectives and fostered new ways of thinking, especially his line leader experience and roles.

“Whatever the organization, whatever the industry, I aim to find a role where my passion for pioneering mirrors that of the business,” he says. “As businesses are launching new products and services, anticipating the unanticipated, charting new territories, and reshaping their industries, so do I have a passion to do the same for HR field. It’s time.”

One thing is abundantly clear: DeThomasis thinks far beyond the scope of what is seen as “traditional HR.” His willingness to question entrenched practices and their sometimes unexpected and unwanted byproducts make him a genuine thought leader in the space.

LOOK IN THE MIRROR Over the course of his one-hour interview, DeThomasis dug deep into the pressing issues of the HR field and how things need to change to stay relevant and continue to add value to the business.

Having been a business leader prior to his career in HR, he shares his “brain dump” of ways to reinvent recruiting and staffing efforts; design more effective retention programs; build more interesting organization structures and models; develop and evolve cultures to achieve stronger engagement and output; rethink diversity, equity, and inclusion end to end; get the most out of compensation and benefit programs; and build agile multiyear leadership and talent benches all while weaving the connections and integration for all. “[HR] can’t be afraid to try new things and push boundaries,” DeThomasis says.

“The cost of us not doing so is our extinction or irrelevance versus being experienced and valued as a strategic business partner. It’s time to be pioneers.”

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With his whole-system approach, creativity, energy level, and business thoughtfulness, DeThomasis shares, “We genuinely still need all these basic HR services and practices, but how we design and execute them going forward needs to change to keep up with the business and evolution of times.

“We need to step back, look in the mirror, and ask ourselves, ‘Do these HR basics in the way we deliver them to the business and put them into practice today [help] us to achieve the results we want?’” he continues. “If not, time to turn these traditional HR methods and playbook exercises on their head.”

Are there new ways of approaching opportunities that simply haven’t been broached because “the old way” always seemed to do enough to get the job done?

Those who are willing to look deeper see that well-intentioned, though compositionally shallow, solutions are not made to last or evolve.

DeThomasis enjoys being a provocateur to help shift the conversation and drive necessary change and evolution—for not only the function and business but also the people too. Playing it safe is not part of his belief system.

ANCHOR THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE “These basic HR practices are still essential but in themselves will not foster change.

They need to anchor to something if we want to have the right impact,” DeThomasis says.

At the core, he passionately believes the key ingredient is designing and executing a sustainable employee value proposition (EVP) that enables a consistent and rewarding employee experience.

“If you take the time to clearly articulate the most compelling and emotionally appealing EVP, as well as help make it come alive, the dividends will be there in terms of inclusion, productivity, innovation, engagement, and growth. It’s all about the employee experience and creating the right level of belongingness and stickiness too.”

DeThomasis knows that the companies who are willing to take the time and make the investment into building their EVPs will

“Is what we’ve been doing for fifty years in HR going to serve us going forward? ” Marco DeThomasis

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Marco DeThomasis

stand strong now and in the future. “It’s well worth the effort,” he assures.

Employees and leaders alike need to believe in the EVP to achieve their company’s fullest potential, he says. “To believe it, they need to experience it firsthand in everything that the organization offers and undertakes from their various processes and policies to daily interactions with leaders and managers. It needs to come alive.

If it does, it will foster genuine belonging and connection and create a rewarding employee experience driving significant business results.”

The HR leader goes onto further explain that as “we design total reward programs, create leadership development efforts, and build organizational structures, for example, we need to keep the EVP at the center of our design thinking acting as our checks and balances and North Star. It’s important that we design and execute the HR basics in a way that helps us achieve and realize the employee value proposition and create consistent employee experience.”

According to DeThomasis, successful EVPs are ones that capture the head, heart, and hands of employees. “If it’s just a bunch of words on a poster in the lunchroom or front lobby, it’s nothing more than textbook exercise that has no real meaning or motivation,” he says. “It’s more two-dimensional versus three-dimensional.”

It’s important that EVPs are straightforward, built with emotional connection and appeal, and paint a vivid picture of why an employee should join and stay with an organization. This allows it to become the 3D model that DeThomasis was referring to.

“The EVP needs to move you and draw you in so you feel a connection. It needs to capture the head, heart, and hands,” DeThomasis explains. “Putting just the words on the page, however, is not enough. We need to help make it come alive—that’s where the hard work is.” The adage still holds true: actions speak louder than words. And

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HR Thought Leader

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“[HR] can’t be afraid to try new things and push boundaries. The cost of us not doing so is our extinction or irrelevance versus being experienced and valued as a strategic business partner. It’s time to be pioneers.”

Marco DeThomasis

it’s what keeps the employee experience at the forefront.

“It starts with how we attract and recruit talent all the way through to how we transition employees at time of retirement,” plus everything in between, DeThomasis says.

“We always want our employees to be positive net promoters of the company based on their entire end-to-end experience.”

That 3D thinking is truly what captures the head, heart, and hands.

PRACTICE THE “OZ PRINCIPLE” “We can’t underestimate how much leadership and management directly influence the employee experience,” DeThomasis notes. “Managers and leaders can make or break the EVP, if their behav iors

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and actions do not support the desired employee experience.”

The first step is for managers and leaders to authentically believe in their EVPs and want to drive the right employee experience.

“If they do, their actions and behaviors will follow suit. They will help make the EVP come alive naturally and easily,” he says.

“They will give it life.”

It takes self-awareness and genuine care to engage with your employees in the right way, the HR executive affirms. This will manifest the EVP “because they are able to calibrate their intention and impact effectively and dynamically,” he says.

There is a direct correlation between how leaders and managers interact with their employees and successful engagement

as a whole; these experiences will shape the fundamental beliefs and assumptions that employees make about themselves, their managers, and the organization. The bottom line is that it will influence their output and loyalty as well as the business outcomes.

“Managers and leaders are the critical components here because if they’re not equipped and they don’t get it, the entire effort is going to falter and the rest of the workforce will sense it very quickly,” DeThomasis says. “The secret sauce is cultivating those leaders who really believe and unleashing them to do amazing work that will bring people along with them. They’re the ones who will create followership, belonging, and stickiness. And, as result, be rewarded with superior business results.”

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DeThomasis, a fan of the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, says, “Managers and leaders are like Dorothy. Along the yellow brick road, Dorothy helped reverse and evolve the underlying beliefs and assumptions of her team (the Lion, Tinman, and Scarecrow), changing ultimately how they viewed themselves individually and as a team, too, leading to greater and different results as they progressed on their journey to Oz.” He is a believer and everyday practitioner himself of the “Oz Principle,” because a focus on changing people’s beliefs and assumptions about themselves and their organizations is what will actually change the results. “This is such a basic principle of leadership—humanity, for that matter—but sometimes we forget how much we directly influence our employees, shaping their belief system and ultimately their behaviors and output through every interaction with us,” he explains. “We need to calibrate more frequently than we do. We are integral component[s] to the equation. We, as leaders and managers, directly shape the employee experience and as a result, the business outcomes.”

DeThomasis advises leaders to ask, “Are we creating the right employee experience [and] driving the right beliefs and actions?”

If the answer is no, there is work to do.

“I remember something my mentor told me earlier in my career: ‘We are the experts of our intent. Others are the experts of our impact,’” he says. “At the end of the day, you need to understand if those two things are aligned. It’s our job as leaders to always check for this alignment.”

DeThomasis is ready to help his next organization put on 3D glasses, craft more meaningful employee value propositions, and help a workplace understand and live its culture to the fullest. He will build consensus, unearth the essential narrative critical to helping tell the story of change, and encourage the talent around him to lean into what’s possible when you stop doing things the way they’ve always been done.

There’s something exciting about Marco DeThomasis, and you want to be part of whatever he’s got cooking. That’s the magic of the special sauce, the belief in the belief.

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Sergio Mazon

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Confidence

Blooms

Robin Villareal balances leading the IT department at Gila River Resorts & Casinos with empowering her fellow women and Gila River Indian Community members, both inside and outside the organization

By N AT A L I E K O C H A N O V

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Robin Villareal CIO

Point In Time Studios

Gila River Resorts & Casinos

Since stepping into the role of chief information officer at Gila River Resorts & Casinos, Robin Villareal has found herself in the spotlight like never before.

The unexpected attention created an added challenge for her to overcome on top of adapting to a new role: imposter syndrome.

“I couldn’t help wondering why people wanted to come speak to me,” Villareal admits. Despite these misgivings, she pushed herself to attend a women’s leadership conference that ended up shifting her perspective. “I decided just to be myself,” she says of the event. “I walked in and said good morning to everybody, and I ended up feeling so excited and empowered. I realized that every single one of us had a story of coming in and coming up, and it was my time to come up.”

Since that conference, Villareal has made it a point to empower the women around her, many of whom she knows might struggle with their confidence like she once did. She seeks, too, to support her Gila River Indian Community through her efforts as CIO at the Community-owned Gila Resorts & Casinos, which is set to open its fourth Arizona property, SanTan Mountain Casino, in late 2023 (at time of speaking).

When she first joined the casino in 1995, Villareal did not have any aspirations in the IT space. She started as a beverage server, then worked briefly as secretary to the executive chef—until a call to the IT desk for help resolving a computer issue inspired the desk to offer her a technician role.

“I told them I didn’t know anything about computers, and they said I knew more than I thought I did,” she recalls. “My first couple of days there, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision because I couldn’t understand the terminology. But I realized that I actually really like being challenged.”

Villareal honed her skill set and expertise by taking on a series of interim roles in the IT department, which encompasses the functional areas of infrastructure, operations, project management, and cybersecurity. By the time the CIO position opened up a few years ago, she believed in her ability to rise to the occasion—and

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CONGR ATUL ATIONS ROBIN VILL AREAL

IGT is honored to work with Robin Villareal, Chief Information Officer at Gila River Resorts & Casinos.

Robin’s many accomplishments are an inspiration.

Her leadership and ongoing commitment to tribal sovereignty and sustainability for her community are outstanding.

Thank you, Robin, for all you do. We are thrilled to celebrate you!

- Toni Martinez, VP of Sales, Western Region, IGT and Sean Sauter, VP of Sales, Systems, IGT

©2023 IGT.

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“It’s about understanding the executive team’s highlevel vision or dream, interpreting it, and bringing it back down to my team so they know where we’re headed and what we can do as a department to pave that path forward for the dreamers. I always say that we’re the dream makers.”

Robin Villareal

convinced Gila River to give her a chance to prove herself.

First and foremost, Villareal views the title of CIO as a call to connect with her amazing—and amazingly knowledgeable— team members. “I value getting to know my team so I can be an ambassador for the IT department,” she says. “It’s about understanding the executive team’s highlevel vision or dream, interpreting it, and bringing it back down to my team so they know where we’re headed and what we can do as a department to pave that path forward for the dreamers. I always say that we’re the dream makers.”

Recently, the dream at Gila River has revolved around the development of the new

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SanTan site. Villareal cites an immersive glass building exterior, auto-leveling audio on the casino floor, and on-demand food and beverage services as just a few of the innovations the project entails from an IT perspective.

“We’re also going to have the biggest sportsbook in Arizona once this property opens,” she adds. “It’s going to be a real ‘wow’ factor. We’re doing anything and everything we can think of to create a truly great experience for our guests.”

Beyond playing active parts in the SanTan project as well as IT upgrades across Gila River’s existing properties, Villareal took the initiative to kickstart a leadership conference for the women of the organization, based on

the transformative effect of the conference she herself had attended.

“Our first conference, in August 2022, was such a huge success. I’ve come across several ladies who asserted themselves from their previous positions into upper management roles because the conference gave them the confidence to try,” she says.

Many others have found confidence in Villareal’s guidance as well. “Robin’s many accomplishments are an inspiration. Her leadership and ongoing commitment to tribal sovereignty and sustainability for her community are outstanding,” say Toni Martinez and Sean Sauter, VPs of sales at IGT. “Thank you, Robin, for all you do. We are thrilled to celebrate you!”

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WE’VE GOT “When you’re in a leadership role, YOUR BACK you carry these seeds with you, and you have to walk this path and plant with right-fit those seeds so the people behind technology you can come through and enjoy solutions. the flowers.”

Robin Villareal

But a pivotal moment in continuing to grow Villareal’s own confidence in herself came when she spoke to a fellow female attendee of an awards luncheon last year.

“I was having trouble because, culturally, we’re not supposed to be putting ourselves outside the community or being boastful,” Villareal explains. “She told me that when you’re in a leadership role, you carry these seeds with you, and you have to walk this path and plant those seeds so the people behind you can come through and enjoy the flowers.”

The conversation resonated deeply with Villareal, who reassessed her responsibility to her team and to the Gila River Indian Community as a result. She now feels honored to contribute to securing the

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Community’s future, especially as the first— but hopefully not the last—Community member to sit as CIO. “Having a succession plan is one of my priorities,” she says. “I emphasize to all of my team members that this place needs to be here for generations to come, so it can provide back to the state of Arizona and to our Community.”

OneNeck IT Solutions LLC specializes in multicloud solutions, combined with managed services, professional IT services, hardware, and local connectivity via toptier data centers in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Wisconsin. OneNeck’s team of technology professionals deliver secure, modern platforms and applications for organizations embracing data-driven transformation and secure end-to-end solutions. Visit oneneck.com.

F E AT U R E : I D E N T I T Y

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Survive and

Thrive

Christina Plhak knew that “making it through” wasn’t enough to weather the pandemic. Instead, she helped Freeman Company find ways to flourish.

By B I L LY Y O S T

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Christina Plhak SVP of IT

Ella Gagiano

Freeman Company

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Christina Plhak came to Freeman Company just a year prior to the pandemic shutting down large swaths of the world we used to know. Freeman is known as a leader in the events industry: it works with some of the largest trade shows, conferences, and exhibitors of all sizes. But it was faced with the challenge of an entire industry pause when every live event was called off in March 2020.

You can hear the relief in the senior vice president of IT’s voice now, having made it through the most challenging environment of the twenty-first century. Plhak was able to drive change across an organization that has done much more than it’s endured; it’s evolved to meet the needs of the new post-pandemic world.

As a woman who grew up in IT before “IT” was a well-understood abbreviation, Plhak has already faced her share of obstacles in navigating a field that was mostly male for decades. Her servant leadership has escalated her to the very top of her field, and she’s found countless ways to pave her path so that women hoping to emulate her journey find fewer systemic obstacles in their way.

THE VALUE OF TRUST The SVP says navigating the COVID-19 pandemic required the leadership at Freeman to lean heavily on grit and trust.

“We were in the live event industry undergoing a complete shift in the way people were able to live their lives,” Plhak explains. “I’m so proud of this company, because of our resilience and ability to pick ourselves up during an unimaginable time.

As hard as it’s been, it’s amazing to see how we’ve come together and rebuilt ourselves.”

Trust among leadership was crucial.

While furloughs were necessary, the leadership team had to undergo a massive reorganization while working from home.

Plhak says the errant dog jumping into a lap or inquisitive child inadvertently stumbling into frame brought out the most human parts of the organization. It further built empathy across a company making hard decisions at the hardest possible moment

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“I’m so proud of this company, because of our resilience and ability to pick ourselves up during an unimaginable time.

As hard as it’s been, it’s amazing to see how we’ve come together and rebuilt ourselves.”

Christina Plhak

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and trusting one another that they would come out the other side.

“Those of us who remained had to wear multiple hats because we were no longer a team of thousands—we were a team of hundreds,” Plhak says. “I understood we had to ‘survive to thrive.’ We had to harness our energy, our brain power, and our strength and ensure we could come back stronger than ever.” Amazingly, Freeman was able to bring back many of its furloughed employees as its industry ramped back up while also retaining and recruiting new talent.

“It takes a conscious effort to quiet those voices down and instead focus on the fact that not only can you do it, but you can encourage others as well.”

Christina Plhak

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LESSONS IN RESILIENCE It’s not the first time Plhak has had to endure the sour before achieving the sweet. Her first job was helping an organization prepare for the dreaded Y2K changeover in 2000.

The transition was so seamless that Plhak found herself out of a job shortly after the company realized it had made it through the challenge unscathed.

“It was my first job out of college, and so it was an incredibly hard pill to swallow,” the SVP remembers. “But going through a layoff right out of the gate really helped me build resiliency and realize that my career wasn’t over. It had only just begun.”

Resilience has been part of Plhak’s journey since she was a child. At eleven, her family moved from the US to Brazil. Suddenly, the child had to learn Portuguese and how to navigate a brand-new culture— dozens, in fact—as she quickly accumulated friends from all over the world.

By the time her family moved back to the States when she was fourteen, Plhak was hesitant to leave. She’d built a life she loved.

“Of course, I was excited to get back home and be closer to my family, but life in Brazil had really become part of me,” she reflects.

“I realize now that I was incredibly lucky to live overseas, and it’s an experience I wish more kids had the opportunity to have.”

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Engineering Business Outcomes

LESSONS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION In every role, Plhak has found a way to encourage women in technology to be themselves, to speak up, and to be unafraid to make their ideas known. The SVP has spoken to groups across the world, including an event in India where she was able to speak to over two hundred women about their inherent power and ability to lead.

“When I’m working with other women, I really [home] in on that dialogue that is always running through our heads that we unintentionally put there, but that society has instilled: ‘Can I really do this? What are they going to think of me? Am I going to be judged?’ It takes a conscious effort to quiet those voices down and instead focus on the fact that not only can you do it, but you can encourage others as well,” she says.

Plhak mentors colleagues and college students alike. And she is unafraid to speak up for women when they might not have the confidence to do so. It’s an unfortunate skill she had to learn early in a field that, historically, has not always been welcoming to women.

The SVP has helped an organization most poised to feel the effects of the pandemic succeed despite challenging times. And she’s helped countless women find their voices and become leaders in their own right. Plhak hasn’t just survived, she’s thrived.

Infogain is a human-centered digital platform engineering company based in Silicon Valley with delivery centers in Seattle; Houston; Montevideo, Uruguay; Kraków, Poland; and across India. A multicloud expert and Azure expert-managed services provider, we accelerate experience-led transformation in the delivery of digital platforms using technologies such as microservices and generative AI.

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OpenRoads and an Open

Mind

EVP and Deputy CHRO Frank Wilson shares how his nontraditional career path mirrors his personal commitment to meeting people where they are

By N O A H J O H N S O N

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W hen you meet an HR executive, you don’t always expect them to have a background like Frank Wilson.

He started his career in the United States Air Force before heading to community college classrooms as a math professor. However, that unique journey not only made him the perfect fit for his HR role at Maricopa Community Colleges but also taught him a valuable lesson that he hopes to instill in the leaders of today and tomorrow: there isn’t one pathway to success.

“Don’t write someone off just because they’re not following a traditional path,” the executive vice president and deputy chief human resources officer (CHRO) advises.

“People can bring talents and abilities from a completely different pathway into a new space and be successful. As leaders we need to keep our eyes open for those folks.”

That’s what a Maricopa leader did for Wilson in 2020, offering him a district director HR role even though it had been more than twenty years since he had worked full time in HR. What he had was a deep quantitative understanding and expertise, having served as a math professor

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for decades. The then-CHRO knew Wilson could leverage those skills to beef up HR’s long-term planning efforts.

When Wilson took on the role, he made an immediate impact, bringing fresh eyes to organizational challenges and helping to identify solutions to them—something he continues to do in his current role.

“As I stepped into my executive roles in HR, I learned that there hadn’t been a lot of compensation and benefits strategic planning and because of that, decisions have been made on a year-to-year basis, which created some huge problems organizationally,” he says. “My colleagues and I have collaborated with key stakeholder groups to address these challenges. Our Strategic Compensation Plan, which details a $19.5 million investment in employee compensation over five years, is one example of success.”

As analytical and goal-oriented as he is, Wilson understands how life is filled with unexpected twists and turns, bringing both challenges and opportunity. He’s reminded of something an Air Force general told him when he was a twenty-four-year-old officer: “When the door opens, it’s too late to pack your bags.”

That meant he had to be in continual preparation for the next opportunity because he’d never know when it would come his way.

But Wilson seemed to take this approach to his career even before he gleaned this wisdom from the Air Force leader.

After graduating high school, he got a scholarship from the Air Force to study in mathematics at Brigham Young University.

Wilson knew that he wanted to be a teacher and made sure to put himself in the best positions to achieve that goal. He was soon offered a graduate assistantship, allowing him to pursue a master’s degree and serve as a teaching assistant.

From there, Wilson went on to work in military personnel and computer-based training before landing a faculty position at the US Air Force Academy. After two years in that role, he came to a decision point.

“I knew I loved mathematics teaching, and I knew I couldn’t stay at the Air Force Academy forever to do that because they would move me around to other assignments,” Wilson recalls. He eventually made the difficult decision to separate from the Air Force and to advance his teaching career.

After leaving the military, he found a home in the community college space. Its mission

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Frank Wilson

EVP and Deputy CHRO

Maricopa Community Colleges

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Jarin M. Wilson

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“The community college says, ‘We don’t care how good you were in high school and if you’ve been out of school for twenty years. Our door is open to everyone and what we care about is you.’ And that inclusive policy is core to who I am. I believe in taking people where they are and helping them grow.”

Frank Wilson

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Your Partner in New Possibilities

The Alliant experience uncovers new possibilities for your organization and ensures you capitalize on opportunities where it matters most — in the reduction of healthcare and administrative burdens.

“Don’t write someone off just because they’re not following a traditional path.”

Frank Wilson

Connect with us to find out how: (949)-660-5952 tom.quirk@alliant.com alliant.com

aligned with his—to help others be better, no matter what their background is.

“The big universities screen people out, saying, ‘If you’re good enough we’ll let you in.’ The community college says, ‘We don’t care how good you were in high school and if you’ve been out of school for twenty years.

Our door is open to everyone and what we care about is you,’” Wilson explains. “And that inclusive policy is core to who I am. I believe in taking people where they are and helping them grow.”

After the air force, he spent the next twenty years working at Green River Community College and Chandler-Gilbert Community College, supplementing his teaching with leadership responsibilities and shared governance experiences. He joined Maricopa’s HR team after critiquing a market study on the district’s full-time faculty pay.

“I found that the study was filled with logical and empirical errors, so I wrote a rebuttal and challenged them on the validity of their analysis,” Wilson recalls. “After that, the chief human resources officer asked if I could come over and help.”

Since then, Wilson has helped the department develop a five-year compensation

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plan, a benefits plan, and a performance success plan.

He advises other leaders to lead their own teams with what he calls “professional humility.” As he explains it, “it’s a willingness of a leader to say, ‘I’m human and when I make mistakes I own it and I move forward.’”

The Alliant experience uncovers new possibilities for your organization and ensures you capitalize on opportunities where it matters most—in the reduction of healthcare and administrative burdens. We listen to your needs, taking the time to understand your culture, your goals, and your employee population. Connect with us: (949) 660-5952.

Banner|Aetna is proud to partner with Maricopa County Community Colleges and Frank Wilson to provide quality and affordable health insurance to their benefit-eligible employees and their families. Banner|Aetna is an Arizonabased health plan with national reach that integrates with Banner Health and Aetna® to improve the patient and member healthcare experience. Our integrated network joins the right medical professionals with the right technology, so employers and their employees benefit from quality, personalized healthcare. Our plans provide affordable health insurance options that deliver more savings, choices, and convenience. To learn more about our healthcare coverage, visit BannerAetna.com.

S T R AT E G Y Subject-matter experts share their actionable insights for guiding company growth and success Michael Russo, Shift4

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Sammy Bousaba, American Chamber of Commerce, Dubai P57 Khary Hodge, Strategic Education Inc.

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Paul Wierbicki, Rush Street Interactive

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“Remove the Parts” CTO Michael Russo dives into Shift4’s expansion, simplifying complexity, and always keeping the end goal in mind

By N O A H J O H N S O N

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Shift4 is the future of commerce, transforming the way people accept and make payments. At the center of this fintech organization is Michael Russo, chief technology officer (CTO), who is responsible for all payment platform, merchant, and outward facing technologies, and vertical solutions such as venue and restaurant platforms. Under his leadership, his team brings cutting-edge solutions to market by staying true to one of the company’s core values.

“One of our core philosophies is to remove the parts in anything and everything we do,” Russo says. By “removing the parts,” the CTO means finding ways to simplify the varying degrees of complexity his team deals with on a daily basis.

That mentality has helped the Shift4 power billions of transactions each year with its processing and point-of-sale services for businesses across several

“During the due diligence for these M&As, we not only look for what these solutions could do for our business today but how we can parlay that into making the overall Shift4 solution bestin-class.”

MICHAEL RUSSO

S T R AT E G Y

Michael Russo CTO

Dan Merlo

Shift4

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“As an engineer, I realized I needed to get experience in areas I didn’t have, like how to run support and deployment organizations, how to build engineering teams from scratch, and a training team.”

MICHAEL RUSSO

industries. Recently, Russo’s team has been on that work with a new online payments platform designed to propel both large internet and brick-and-mortar businesses worldwide. It has advanced developer tools geared toward supporting businesses of various sizes. The platform allows users to create customizable checkout forms, backs a wide range of payment scenarios, and more.

In a press release, Russo noted the platform “delivers a truly unmatched solution that can support the largest and most complex e-commerce merchants around the world. Built by developers for developers, our platform enables seamless web and mobile payments with a simple and flexible integration, powerful management tools, and the highest level of security.”

Shift4, which started in 1999 as United Bank Card, is also expanding its capabilities in other ways, particularly through several acquisitions. By acquiring Finaro, a cross-border e-commerce payments acquirer and processor provider with a large European presence, and the Giving Block, which specializes in cryptocurrency fundraising for nonprofits, Shift4 will accelerate growth globally while paving the way to cryptocurrency enablement and nonprofit opportunities. Recently, the company also

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acquired a company in Poland that excels at operating internet payments.

“During the due diligence for these M&As, we not only look for what these solutions could do for our business today but how we can parlay that into making the overall Shift4 solution best-in-class,” Russo says. “Already they’ve helped us get new customers, get some pretty cool capabilities in Europe, and onboard state-of-the-art ISVs [independent software vendors] and merchants to the family.”

The technology services vendors that Russo works with speak highly of his abilities in these areas. “Mike epitomizes creativity and innovation when it comes to transforming organizations, may it be with his teams or his partners,” says Harsha Liyanage of Virtusa Corporation. “Although he leads with technology, business outcomes have always been his sole focus.”

It isn’t always easy to “remove the parts” amid M&A cycles and their implications, Russo admits. “You’re taking another company and bringing in ‘extra parts’ and integrating them, whether that be through sales processes, technology, or how you support it all.”

But Russo’s process to helping his team align with the company’s ambitious growth

goals starts with an empowering leadership style and an ability to keep the end goal in mind. He’s seen the latter approach not only work wonders in his decades-long career, but also on the products he’s had the chance to develop.

That wisdom even extends to a side project he worked on for thirteen years.

“I was developing a 1/8th-size steam locomotive and made sure to keep the blueprints up on the wall, constantly reminding myself that, ‘This is where I’m going, and here is how [these] twenty hours I spend on this little part fits into the whole,’” he says. “If you don’t do that, you drive yourself crazy.”

He started his career that way: with an end goal in mind. After graduating from California State University, Long Beach, with a chemical engineering degree (with emphasis on software development), Russo was working at a company that built oil refineries when he caught the entrepreneurial bug.

“After a year and a half, leaders thought I’d be good for a marketing and sales role for creating new software to make refinery operations more efficient. Those experiences made me want to start my own software company,” he recalls. “As an engineer, I realized I needed to get experience in areas

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Collaborate with us today to transform onto your transformation journey across digital touchpoints with our ‘Engineering First’ approach.

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LEADERSHIP THAT PAYS OFF “You want to be a leader, not a manager,” says Michael Russo when asked about what it takes to strategically guide a strong team. “When you put teams together, your job is to empower them to get them signed up and to help them understand what we’re trying to achieve. Since our agile teams drive the work, they need to be really inspired. To do that, start with the end point in mind. If people don’t understand what that is, you’ll never get there. Start there, and along the way, get the teams feeling like they own what they’re doing and that they can do what it takes without someone breathing down their neck, micromanaging them.”

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I didn’t have, like how to run support and deployment organizations, how to build engineering teams from scratch, and a training team.”

For the next four years, Russo decided to take jobs that matched what he needed to know as a company leader.

“Some people thought I was kind of crazy for wanting to go in and do some of those jobs, but it was a stepping stone for me and I spent years getting those experiences to reach my end point,” he reflects. “I thought I needed to understand enough about the whole big picture to make that happen.”

In 1994, Russo cofounded a healthcarefocused software company.

When the company was sold in 2000, he developed a new end goal that he brought to several companies and most recently to Shift4 in 2018. “Today, my endgame is seeing new products and capabilities hit the market,” he says. “I’ve been very lucky in my career because I’ve always been given new opportunities to do that and that’s rewarding.”

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PAX Technology Inc. is one of the largest electronic payment solution providers in the world, with 60 million terminals located in over 120 countries. As a leading global manufacturer of payment solutions, we are committed to delivering innovative, high-quality, and secure payment solutions to businesses, large and small, worldwide.

Virtusa Corporation is a global provider of digital engineering and technology services and solutions for Forbes Global 2000 companies in the financial services, healthcare, communications, media, entertainment, travel, manufacturing, and technology industries worldwide. At Virtusa, digital engineering is at the heart of everything we do. We are thirty-five thousand builders, makers, and doers that partner with customers to reimagine enterprises and creatively build solutions to the most pressing business challenges that move them to the forefront of their industries. Virtusa’s unique “Engineering First” approach means never presenting an idea we can’t execute. With deep industry expertise and empowered agile teams made up of world-class talent, we think about execution early in the process, because the earlier you think about execution the earlier an idea can have an impact. Solving from the inside out enables businesses to respond swiftly to changing needs with improved quality, lower costs, and lasting results.

S T R AT E G Y

“Focus on What Matters” Sammy Bousaba shares the challenges of leading the American Chamber of Commerce’s Dubai division through the COVID-19 pandemic and where he gets his endless energy

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Sammy Bousaba President

Mary Tolentino

American Chamber of Commerce, Dubai

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W hen Sa mmy Bousaba says he needed a challenge, he meant it. The president of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Dubai came to the States after graduating high school in Taipei, Taiwan. In fact, his entire family settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where both he and his father would earn long tenures with FedEx. But after Bousaba graduated college and settled down in Chicago, the global citizen felt the itch to get back out in the world.

“I had met and married a woman from Lebanon, where my father was from,” Bousaba explains. “We had a three-month-old daughter at the time, and I got an opportunity to come to Dubai. We figured we’d go for two years and just figure it out. That was [seventeen] years ago.”

In that time, Bousaba, now a father of three, still works with FedEx as its managing director of sales for the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, and Africa, in addition to becoming AmCham Dubai’s leading voice since 2018. The move to Dubai was the best thing that could have happened for his family, his career, and for the advancement of American business interests in one of the world’s most economically charged regions.

Bousaba’s initial interest in connecting with AmCham was more personal.

“There were things I really missed about America,” the leader explains. “AmCham events were a chance to be around like-minded people who were working to build a community. It was a chance to feel connected.”

Prior to taking the helm of the organization, Bousaba served on the AmCham board of directors and several junior committees.

The timing of Bousaba’s election meant he had just enough time to get the hang of the

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leadership role before being plunged into the most confusing time anyone has ever collectively experienced: the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, Bousaba says the universality of the pandemic conditions was more unifying than anything else.

“We were all in it together,” Bousaba explains. “There was no one that wasn’t going through it. I think that might be the first time in our remembered history that we could say that. If something couldn’t get done, we were hearing it from multiple people both inside the organization and out.”

The AmCham organization did its best to seize the pandemic as a time to reframe its strategy and redirect some of its efforts.

Bousaba says that the immediacy of supporting its membership truly allowed him and the rest of the organization to let go of issues that didn’t fundamentally matter.

“I had an epiphany during this time about where we were focusing some of our time,” the president says. “Something like the pandemic changes your perspective fundamentally, and in many ways, I think that helped us rethink our approach to providing value to our members coming out of COVID. Don’t focus on distractions or detractors.

Focus on what matters.”

The slowdown out of the pandemic, though, is really where things got interesting. As every business and organization began to, once again, chart their own path and the shared trauma of the pandemic began to fade, Bousaba admits that the challenges were almost harder on the backend than the front. “ We support so many small- and medium-size enterprises, and many organizations were undergoing some significant growing pains coming out of the pandemic,” the president says. “We needed to make sure

“You have to learn to leave your work at the door and focus on what gives you that spirit to keep going. For me, that’s my family.”

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“Something like the pandemic changes your perspective fundamentally, and in many ways, I think that helped us rethink our approach to providing value to our members coming out of COVID.” SAMMY BOUSABA

Mary Tolentino

that those feeling the impact the most were getting as much as they could from us.”

This was easier during the pandemic because the experience was more universal. AmCham created numerous webinars, programming, and connection opportunities for members who were suddenly stuck in their homes. The webinars became outlets for members to speak with government officials and discuss their pain points.

And while post-pandemic challenges may have become more diverse and individual, Bousaba’s organization just experienced its best year yet—literally. AmCham’s Dubai organization has its highest membership to date, and Bousaba says it’s in the best financial position he can remember.

The president refuses any credit but says that when it comes to leading an organization, he has one goal.

“A leader should leave a team better than when they took over,” Bousaba says. “That sounds pretty basic, but I’m not sure that happens a lot. I think a lot of leaders can come in and sort of lay waste to a team.

They walk away, and everyone wonders why things are so bad.”

That’s why Bousaba is so determined to not let his ego get involved in his leadership. He says the price is just too high for an organization to pay. The leader stresses the power of humility, and having the courage to lean into it when others might mistakenly and superficially read it as weakness.

Bousaba has also learned a great deal about the energy he spends and the energy he takes. It was initially a lesson he learned at a seminar, but his family was responsible for teaching him the master class.

“My kids and wife taught me that no matter how tired I might be when I get home, I actually get energy from spending time with them,” he says. “When I walk in the door, the first thing I do is get down on my knees and play with my six-year-old. That gives me life, it relaxes me, and it’s that way with my whole family. You have to learn to leave your work at the door and focus on what gives you that spirit to keep going. For me, that’s my family.”

S T R AT E G Y

Enlightened Management for a New Generation Strategic Education’s Khary Hodge believes great chemistry among work teams stems from understanding what makes people tick

By P E T E R FA B R I S

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A few years ago, Khary Hodge faced a tough challenge. At t he t ime, he oversaw a team of eight human resources professionals. His boss felt that he was ready to step up his game and manage a much bigger team of over sixty. However, the challenge for Hodge, now vice president of human resources for Strategic Education Inc., went beyond the increased numbers.

He wanted to manage with a team-first approach. Hodge saw firsthand throughout his career that authoritarian leadership could create an environment where employees were reluctant to take risks and make suggestions for improvement.

This formative episode reflects changing trends in management philosophy. The way Hodge sees it, a younger cohort of employees chafe under the watch of dictatorial bosses and are demanding a more enlightened approach. He has several inspired insights to offer managers navigating this new environment.

Reminiscing over his seminal management challenge, Hodge says the most important action off the bat was to set the managerial tone. “I told everybody that, at the end of the day, we win or lose as a team,” he recalls. “There’s no ‘me’ or no ‘you’—we are a team. That created a positive dynamic immediately.” It was just the beginning of the tough work ahead, but it was a key first step in establishing trust between him and his new team, and it gave him the runway to implement his vision.

A key lesson from that period was the importance of being authentic—giving people you work with insight into what makes you tick along with some understanding of your motivations, your vision, and

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“I don’t give people deadlines. I give them challenges, and they set the deadlines.”

KHARY HODGE

how projects impact the larger goals of the organization. Ordering people to accomplish a task within a seemingly arbitrary deadline with scant big-picture context isn’t enough to inspire teams to give their best effort.

Instead, Hodge takes a decidedly modern approach. “I don’t give people deadlines,” he says. “I give them challenges, and they set the deadlines.” The team knows its capabilities best, he reasons, and it knows how and when it can realistically accomplish a particular challenge over a given period. There is accountability to get the job done well within the deadline, of course, and a manager must keep tabs on progress, but Hodge steers clear of veering into dictatorial mode.

The work environment is different today than it was in the last century, Hodge observes. Many young employees came of age in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Some of their parents, relatives, and adult acquaintances lost jobs due to fraud and negligence committed by others. For that cohort, loyalty to an organization must

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Khary Hodge VP of HR

Disney Fine Art Photography

Strategic Education Inc.

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“I told everybody that, at the end of the day, we win or lose as a team. There’s no ‘me’ or no ‘you’—we are a team. That created a positive dynamic immediately.”

KHARY HODGE

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be earned by the organization. It is not given readily.

What’s more, employees today don’t have to pledge allegiance to one company. The gig economy affords them many options to earn a paycheck including consulting or starting their own business. Managers that fail to take a modern coaching mindset and rely on fear as a motivator are likely to face high turnover in their ranks, Hodge warns.

With much of the work being done in organizations today is project-based or performed by small teams, it’s critical to build trust and a good rapport within the group.

The manager sets the tone, and for Hodge, it begins with relating to those you manage on a personal level. To do that, you must understand others’ backgrounds.

For example, a female colleague who grew up in a Midwestern suburban environment carries a far different set of life experiences to the workplace than he does as an African American man from New York City. Your life experience forms your business persona, Hodge notes. He recognizes that when he speaks, his strong, rapid-fire delivery will be perceived differently by others than that of a more soft-spoken colleague who grew up in a more serene environment.

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A manager who realizes this can and should try to highlight an insightful point made by the more unassuming colleague in a meeting, Hodge advises. Everyone has good ideas, but sometimes they get lost in the robust debate of a business meeting when not delivered at full bore.

Supporting a teammate in that manner, informed by knowledge of their personal traits and background, builds bonds with them and makes for a more cohesive and effective group. As a sports fan, Hodge observes that championships are not always won by the teams that compile the most talent. Rather, a team with great chemistry often takes home the big prize.

Managers who relate well personally to those they manage catalyze good team chemistry, and that makes all the difference when cultivating winning squads. “If you care about what they need as a person, it makes them more loyal to you and the team,” Hodge says. Then, everybody is happy, and the organization succeeds.

“Congratulations, Khary. We’ve truly enjoyed our partnership over the years.” –Lockton Companies

S T R AT E G Y

A Great Bet In his role as chief legal officer and general counsel, Paul Wierbicki helps Rush Street Interactive navigate new markets as the company expands

By K A R E N S C H WA R T Z

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Paul Wierbicki, chief legal officer and general counsel of online gaming and sports bett ing compa ny Rush Street Interactive (RSI), is helping the company explore new market opportunities from a revenue, profitability, and risk perspective.

He also works hard to balance the interests of its two business lines—sports betting and online casinos—and help RSI best reach its key demographics and target markets.

Wierbicki, a New York University Law School grad who joined RSI in July 2021, has also worked for Neil Bluhm, the company’s largest shareholder, as the company went public in 2020. RSI, which has some seven hundred employees, has more than doubled in employee size in the past three years and also seen a jump in revenue since it went public, he says.

“With that, you have to build the structures, processes, and procedures of being a larger public company, and that’s where my team and I add value to the organization,” he says. “We’re helping to create processes that help mitigate risk, which is every lawyer’s

“I know a lot of people say you can’t think of your career like a straight line up; it’s more like a zigzag. I totally agree with that.”

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Paul Wierbicki

General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer Rush Street Interactive

Anthony Cassara

responsibility, but also one of the primary objectives is to make sure there’s effective communication throughout the organization and the people that need to know the information are getting the information to be able to do their jobs.”

Wierbicki started his legal career working in corporate restructuring, and a decade into his career, during the market downturn, switched paths. “The market changed and I had to change with it and pivot into something else,” he says.

His pivot was successful because he was able to understand the circumstances and expand his knowledge. “I know a lot of people say you can’t think of your career like a straight line up; it’s more like a zigzag,” he says. “I totally agree with that.”

The third lawyer hired at Rush Street, Wierbicki has built out a team of nine internal lawyers and two external lawyers who help make sure the business is aligned on privacy and other laws. “We set up our player programs and protections in accordance with not only the law, the best practices, but also work to ensure that we’re best protecting all our player data, employee data, and all the other data RSI takes over in the course of its operations,” he says.

The team, whose role encompasses government relations, data privacy and protection, corporate governance, securities compliance, general risk management, and mitigation, works to ensure that the company’s strategic initiatives are implemented and executed.

Team members work within government affairs on iGaming regulations in the United States and advocate for expanding the number of states doing iGaming across the country.

On a day-to-day basis the teams looks at and assesses legal, tax, financial, and political risk for market summaries to present to leadership. It also looks for solutions to structure and work around risks for further discussion.

The team supports RSI as it continues to look for

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“I try to drop the barriers that are prohibiting communication, propose solutions, and try to build consensus so people understand the solution and what next steps should be.”

PAU L W I E R B I C K I

opportunities to grow its core markets in the US, Canada, and Latin America. In the US over half the states have legalized sports betting, but only seven states allow online casinos. That’s a challenge for a company that derives over 70 percent of its revenues from online casinos, Wierbicki says.

“There’s a lot of thought and time that goes into what is the right message, the right narrative, the right benefits we can convey to some of these states that are having these discussions at the legislative level about potentially legalizing online casino,” he explains. “In LatAm it’s less about that and more about really understanding the business culture, vetting the sources and the potential partners, and then developing deeper relationships with those partners.”

Clear communication helps make it all happen, Wierbicki says. He makes open lines of communication and collaboration central for his team and a priority for how the legal team interacts within the organization.

He has also worked to create crossfunctional groups for projects and encourages meetings to keep that dialogue going.

“Miscommunication happens not because people aren’t saying the same thing, they’re just not being clear about what they’re saying,” he says.

Being willing to be available when someone wants to talk about an issue helps remedy that, he says. “Then you are really

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that trusted advisor who people can count on when something comes up, and they know that you’ll be there to help them address whatever their issue is.”

Honest feedback has been another hallmark of his leadership style, the general counsel says. “Providing honest feedback and then really trying to bring people together is important. I try to drop the barriers that are prohibiting communication, propose solutions, and try to build consensus so people understand the solution and what next steps should be.”

Overall, Wierbicki says he looks forward to seeing the company continue to grow and build out its legal team, as well as finding new states in the US where online casino can be legalized.

Dickinson Wright is a law firm that understands your high-tech world, where each day you work hard to design, create, and improve. The last thing you need to worry about is the security of your innovations. We believe that effective legal advocacy requires a comprehensive knowledge of the law and a thorough understanding of our clients’ businesses. Our lawyers provide practical advice, while vigorously advocating to achieve our clients’ objectives. We have the honor of partnering with Paul Wierbicki and Rush Street Interactive to continue expanding the exciting world of gaming into new markets. For more information, contact John Krieger at JKrieger@dickinsonwright.com.

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Kirkland & Ellis is proud to join in recognizing our friend, client and Kirkland Alum

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I M PA C T Leaders highlight successful outcomes of initiatives, whether within their companies or the communities they serve Lisa Botz, EIS Inc.

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Raquel Buari, Four Winds Casino

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Making History Lisa Botz, who’s become the first female CHRO at two separate companies, is committed to increasing leadership roles for women and people of color

By F R A N K D I M A R I A

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I M PA C T

Lisa Botz CHRO

Courtesy of EIS Inc.

EIS Inc.

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When Lisa Botz became the first female chief human resources officer at Senneca Holdings in 2018, her daughter gave her a gift. “She gave me a necklace with a charm of broken glass to say I was breaking the glass ceiling,” Botz recalls. She was not only the first female CHRO at the company, but also the first female on its executive team.

In 2020, Botz once again became the first female CHRO for a company—this time at EIS Inc., where she was also the first woman to earn a seat at the table in its C-suite. EIS, one of North America’s leading distributors of process materials, production supplies, specialty wire, and cable, had been male-dominated for most of its seventyfive-year history.

“What I heard from people—and women particularly—was that they were excited about seeing the change in leadership. I was a visual representation of what could happen for all women,” Botz says.

Shortly after arriving at EIS, Botz promoted a female African American manager, who told her, “You just made history. I’m the first Black female director in the company’s history,” to which Botz replied: “I didn’t make history, you did. I just knew you were the right person for that role.”

As a champion of DEI, Botz acted when she realized females and nonwhite employees were underrepresented in leadership roles at EIS. “Thirty-five percent of the workforce was nonwhite or females, but only about 20 percent of those groups were represented at the leadership levels,” Botz says.

The goal of the entire EIS leadership team is to increase that number to more accurately reflect EIS’ workforce.

One of Botz’s biggest challenges has been developing and maintaining company culture during EIS’ acquisitions. To maintain its core values and achieve its strategic goals, the company instituted a performance review system and a recognition system that publicly celebrates its employees.

“Each month at town hall meetings, we highlight an EIS employee who behaved in a way that was consistent with EIS values and

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how that helped them achieve the company results,” Botz says.

One goal is to turn EIS customers into “raving fans,” Botz says. “We’ll give an example of how someone went above and beyond or treated the customer in a way that made them become a raving fan and achieved our revenue goals.” This strategy allows the company to drive EIS culture forward by clearly articulating valued goals and behaviors after an acquisition.

There’s a gentle “push and pull” associated with each acquisition, Botz notes.

Acquired employees seek to maintain their independence while acquiring management establishes its philosophy, strategy, and procedures. Communication is key in this process.

“It’s respecting each group, listening to the way they’ve done things, and the reasons why. Through mutual respect, clear demonstration of our values, and focus on the process, teams grow together and understand how to blend and bring out the best in each other,” Botz says.

In looking at employee demographics, company strengths, and strategic goals, Botz knew the company had the benefit of an experienced, long-tenured sales force.

To facilitate continued growth, it needed a progressive training program to leverage the expertise of the sales team.

To that end, Kareem Payne, director of talent development at EIS, created a two-week immersion program for new salespeople, during which subject matter experts discussed products, processes, customers, and the value of EIS products. “EIS is recognized for its knowledgeable sales force and we wanted to ensure continuity of knowledge for ourselves and our customers,” Botz says.

When hiring for her team, which comprises seven direct reports, Botz looks for three qualities. She wants her hires to be passionate about their work, personable, and great at what they do. Once they’re on board, Botz wants to provide the right environment for them to achieve their dreams.

“I’m not there molding the clay day to day with them. I’m standing with my team,

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“Little by little, by just showing up every day and doing your best, you can make it better for the people that are beside you and those that come behind you.”

LISA BOT Z

guiding where it’s needed, stepping in to remove an obstacle, or giving an opportunity to stretch. That’s when the magic happens,” Botz says.

Botz has created an environment at EIS in which employees “feel inspired to come to work, safe when they are there, and fulfilled at the end of the day,” which she learned from Simon Sinek. People perform best when they feel excited and inspired, Botz says. EIS employees should feel safe, not just physically but also to experiment, grow, and express their opinion.

She hopes that when EIS employees look back on their workday, their work week, or their entire career they see that the time they spent at the company was valuable, valued, and important.

“All the days and the years blend together,” she says. “You have some great days and some not-so-great days. But little by little, by just showing up every day and doing your best, you can make it better for the people that are beside you and those that come behind you.”

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I M PA C T

For the Pokagon People Raquel Buari reflects on big builds at Four Winds Casino and how the organization hopes to provide safe entertainment to its patrons while improving the lives of the Pokagon Tribe

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Raquel Buari

VP of Compliance

Peter Ringenberg

Four Winds Casino

“We have so much to fund while at the same time, because of historical traumas and massive healthcare disparities, we have a citizenry that needs much more assistance than the general public.”

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Raquel Buari leads Four Winds Casino’s compliance team as its vice president, supporting the business as it enables her tribe’s ability to fund schools, court systems, healthcare, and housing for the sovereign nation of the Potawatomi people.

As a proud member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, Buari understands just how much of an impact her work has every single day.

“I’m not sure that many realize and respect that sovereign nations are no different than a state that is looking to raise revenues to support state citizens,” Buari explains. “We have so much to fund while at the same time, because of historical traumas and massive healthcare disparities, we have a citizenry that needs a great deal of additional assistance than the general public.”

The tribe’s sovereign nation status can, unfortunately, provide significant challenges both internally and externally, adds the VP, who is also an attorney.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony in March 2023 celebrated the opening of the new Cedar Spa and 317-room hotel at Four Winds’ South Bend, Indiana, location. This was the first spa opening on tribal lands; health and safety codes needed to be amended while regulatory requirements and licensing framework had to be redeveloped by the attorneys for her tribe and implemented by Buari and team.

With the build, they ran into some obstacles, one being that the spa consultant wasn’t familiar with tribal regulations and assumed application of state law.

“The consultant did not realize that those state guidelines don’t apply to tribal land,” Buari recalls. “It gets a little challenging when you’re working with a vendor that is unfamiliar with tribal regulations.”

Another example of a challenge the team encountered was that when trying to secure alcohol for the hotel and restaurant amenities, the licensed distributors were unwilling to sell to an organization who did not hold a state-issued purchasing permit. The tribe was essentially forced to secure a state liquor purchasing permit, even though that permit is functionally

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useless on Pokagon land and the Pokagon Band Gaming Commission is the sole regulator of alcohol on Pokagon lands. However, sometimes the tribe must make the best out of a difficult situation.

“In many cases, our tribal regulations are more strict and more heavily involved than the regulations we’re being asked to comply with,” Buari explains. “I think there can be a perceived arrogance around what others see as a small group of citizens going their own way. It can be frustrating, but in reality, it is the compliance of laws and regulations governed by our sovereign nation, and we know it’s part of the process.”

Despite those hurdles, the twenty-threefloor hotel, spa, banquet space, and other amenities opened last March as planned.

Buari is used to finding success in the toughest circumstances.

Buari’s multiracial parents didn’t have the benefit of post-secondary education, but Buari worked through a prelaw degree at Ball State University. When she became pregnant in her last semester of college, her mother started driving in twice a week to babysit while Buari went to class.

While the near graduate was interning with Four Winds’ legal affairs department, an attorney from the team was so impressed that they asked her to formally join the company. Buari took the job and a year later began attending part-time at Valparaiso University School of Law and continued to work full time. Eventually, discouraged with

how elongated the process had become, she scaled back on her work schedule to finish law school as a full-time student and graduated in 2013.

“I’m grateful for what this organization has been willing to do for me so I could continue my education and be a mother that was able to provide for my child,” Buari says.

“Every step of the way, they have supported my journey.”

Along with both her VP role and full-time job as a mother of four, Buari also devotes a great deal of herself to nonprofit board work.

The VP is a board member of the National Council on Problem Gambling based in Washington, DC. The Problem Gamblingrelated nonprofit work is a part of her job that she finds very fulfilling.

“One of the social responsibilities I believe the casino industry has is to ensure that the guests enjoying what is supposed to be an entertaining activity are doing so responsibly and not running the risk of making it a detriment to their lives,” she explains. “That’s not what we want for our patrons.”

Buari’s husband, who is also an attorney, is incredibly active in his own board service outside of his job, so the pairing is perfect for today’s power couple. As the VP continues her own legal journey while growing into new roles and responsibilities, she remains committed to her tribe and her community.

It’s been there for her when she needed it, and she’ll never hesitate to do the same.

“I’m grateful for what [Four Winds Casino] has been willing to do for me so I could continue my education and be a mother that was able to provide for my child. Every step of the way, they have supported my journey.”

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I M PA C T

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A Devotee of IP 80’s Child/Shutterstock.com

Stacey Foltz Stark has found ways to gather a few decades’ worth of experience into her relatively young legal career at WeWork

By B I L LY YO S T

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Stacey Foltz Stark enjoys sharing her passion for intellectual property (IP) with any audience. Whether breaking down the relevance of IP concepts to inform business decisions at WeWork, where Stark serves as global head of IP, or chatting about a cool new trademark case with a fellow practitioner, she is right at home. She’s drawn to the constantly evolving nature of the practice.

“My love of IP came very early in my career,” Stark reflects. “I took an internet

“I was flying solo against two more senior attorneys.

But I held my own. I won the majority of the requests in our motion . . . It was one of those moments where you go outside your comfort zone and see what you’re made of.”

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law course, and because the law at the time was developing so quickly, there was no casebook available. We read printouts of the seminal cases that were being decided at the time. You couldn’t help but feel like it was immediate and necessary. That’s never stopped for me.”

Stark’s early law experience included working with legends in the IP space at Winston & Strawn where the attorney spent almost seven years prior to moving in-house.

She was able to jump into the deep end early with strong mentors backing her every step of the way. That willingness to immerse herself in IP is precisely what has made Stark as impactful in private practice as it has in-house at WeWork.

SEIZING NEW OPPORTUNITIES Knowing she wanted to specialize early on, Stark was able to seek out and say yes to opportunities in her area of interest. Her first matter at Winston & Strawn was a trademark case before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and federal court that had been pending for nearly a decade. Her timing was perfect; the federal case was gearing up for trial.

“It was such a phenomenal experience that really validated the choices I’d made about building out my IP expertise,” Stark remembers. “I relished the shift from studying these legal principles to seeing their real-world application. I’ve loved this specialty ever since.”

Stark recalls other formative experiences, like jumping on a plane to Hong Kong with two days’ notice to attend her first International Trademark Association conference because a partner was unable to attend. At that conference, she connected with fellow IP practitioners who she has remained close with to this very day. All

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Stacey Foltz Stark Global Head of IP

Justin Stark and Jordan Stark/Nucleus Pictures

WeWork

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“Given the media’s interest in the company, I’ve learned how to navigate issues under a microscope.” because she was willing to drop everything and go.

“I was fortunate to come up in an environment where I had the autonomy to take risks, develop strategies, lead matters, and create efficiencies, and my critical thinking was valued by more senior attorneys, which helped give me the confidence to tackle challenging issues,” she says.

One of Stark’s final acts in private practice was thrilling, but also intimidating.

She went to Texas to argue a discovery motion before a judge whose reputation was well-established for what she calls “putting junior associates through the ringer.”

“I was f lying solo against two more senior attorneys,” Stark remembers of the David and Goliath moment. “But I held my own. I won the majority of the requests in our motion, even after some needling by the judge. It was one of those moments where you go outside your comfort zone and see what you’re made of.

I learned so much about myself from that single experience.”

All of these examples show that Stark isn’t afraid of a challenge. That mentality has come in handy since joining WeWork.

Two weeks after she started, CEO Adam Neumann stepped down. The litany of legal issues that accompanied the company’s transition presented a wealth of learning opportunities.

“Over the last [five] years, I feel like I’ve faced so many interesting issues that it would have otherwise taken me decades to collect at other organizations,” Stark says.

“Given the media’s interest in the company, I’ve learned how to navigate issues under a microscope.”

Stark remembers a moment where WeWork’s trademark filings were of interest

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Justin Stark and Jordan Stark/Nucleus Pictures

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to the press. Typically, the general public scours trademark applications only to get the scoop on a celebrity’s new baby name.

Operating in this environment has fostered a more holistic style of counseling that takes into account a variety of legal and non-legal considerations.

DRIVING DIVERSITY AND FUTURE IN-HOUSE SUCCESS In addition to her core responsibilities, Stark has also contributed to the company’s chambers-recognized initiatives to support the advancement of underrepresented attorneys and lawyers of the future. She is part of a group working to diversify WeWork’s law firm engagement. The team formalized a process to measure and set individualized goals for its top firm partners to work towards.

“It’s a unique opportunity for us as clients to set the tone and help advocate for more diversity through our law firm partners,” she explains. “We’ve collected data, set metrics, and implemented our policy to measure our progress year over year.”

Stark is also in the third year of overseeing WeWork’s summer associate program.

Her team hosts a handful of current and prospective law students through the SEO (Seizing Every Opportunity) law program and law firm partners, giving the students an opportunity to tackle meaningful work in-house and gain exposure across a multitude of practice areas.

“I’ve been blown away by the talent,” Stark says. “In addition to the work, we also provide a lot of programming. It’s a great opportunity to see all of the flavors of the in-house experience so early in one’s career. These valuable in-house insights help young lawyers succeed as junior firm associates as they have a better understanding of clients’ goals and needs.”

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As an attorney who found and connected with strong mentors early in her own career, Stark wants to take the opportunity to pay it forward. She may even find the nextgeneration IP fanatic with whom she can share that cool new trademark case.

Winston & Strawn applauds Stacey Foltz Stark for her leadership and vision at WeWork and her commitment to intellectual property law.

For more than 160 years, Winston & Strawn has served as a trusted adviser and advocate to companies in a broad array of industries. The firm has built a global law practice based on an uncompromising commitment to quality and client service.

BROADWAY SHOW STARTER PACK IP is Stacey Foltz Stark’s passion, but it’s not her only one. She is also an avid Broadway fan who is willing to offer up some recommendations for musical novices.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street “This production currently has Josh Groban in the lead. He wasn’t at all what I had in mind, but he blew it out of the water. The chemistry of the cast is amazing.”

Hamilton “Of course, you’ve heard of it, but you need to see it. It exists in its own entire category. It was so groundbreaking at the time and will surely be a mainstay on Broadway for many years.”

Dear Evan Hansen “This sadly recently left Broadway, but it’s an incredible show. The use of multimedia onstage felt so fresh. It’s one of my all-time favorites.”

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Trust and Credibility Award-winning HR executive Troy Duke of Stream Realty Partners shares his journey and best practices for connecting with others to help them succeed

By N O A H J O H N S O N

Scan the QR code to be taken to the web story.

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Troy Duke

Carl Brady

Troy Duke, senior vice president of human resources at Stream Realty Partners, has always had a passion for connecting with people and helping them realize their potential.

As the product of a family that encouraged him to do whatever he put his mind to, Duke discovered a strong ability to empower others in a similar way early on in his career.

It was in one of his first positions that he helped launch a platform connecting disadvantaged students with opportunities to pursue college.

“I worked in the admissions and recruitment department at a community college, and we wanted to take the college experience out into the community,” he says. “We rode around to different neighborhoods in an RV to talk to people about going to college, how to make it a reality, saying, ‘Here’s how you do it and here are resources.’ I think that experience really taught me how to interact with a wide variety of people, how to discuss their situations, and be able to find solutions that could help them.”

Duke didn’t always intend on going into HR; after getting a degree in psychology he was set on becoming a counselor. However, his experiences working in educational settings and recruitment inspired him to give the field a chance. He went on to serve in various HR roles, including serving as HR manager at Insight for Living, HR director at Stonebriar Community Church, and as VP of HR for KMA Direct Communications.

He was a consultant for his own firm before eventually coming to Stream Realty Partners in 2010, where he now leads and manages HR strategy, companywide payroll, employee relations, compliance, and more. Duke’s a firm believer that trust and credibility are at the foundation of the work he and other HR leaders do.

“In HR, individuals come to you in the new employment period, in the middle employment period, and in the end, so you face a lot of different situations that come at those different stages, and you need to be able to be a trusted resource,” Duke, who was named Dallas HR executive of the year in 2022, says. “Individuals need to know that

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SVP of HR

Stream Realty Partners

“Individuals need to know that they’re respected, that things will remain confidential, that you’ll give accurate information or direction. And if they don’t trust you, then you don’t have a solid foundation for all the things that come across your desk every day.”

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UKG is proud to support the HR and workforce management needs of Troy Duke & Stream.

“Don’t try to overtalk a situation. You have to respect why someone is coming to you—be patient and do a lot of active listening. It’s not about you or your opinion. It all starts with showing respect.”

T R OY D U K E

See how our solutions can help build trust with your people while improving your bottom line.

they’re respected, that things will remain confidential, that you’ll give accurate information or direction. And if they don’t trust you, then you don’t have a solid foundation for all the things that come across your desk every day.”

But in his role, Duke doesn’t just build trust with his colleagues, give them the information they need, and send them out the door: he has helped bring resources and perspectives to company employees that transform their lives and their communities directly.

And that’s exactly what he has done as a Stream Support Foundation board member.

The 501(c)(3)’s mission is to provide grants for employees impacted by devastating storms, an effort that spawned from hardships employees faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

Duke’s work on the company’s diversity committee has been just as transformative, tasking him and other leaders to not only have important conversations about

diversity, equity, and inclusion, policy, training, and education, but to take actionable steps toward their goals.

“It’s been one of those life-changing experiences in my career,” he ref lects.

“You sit down, talk to people who may not look like you, connect over their life experiences and how it translates into work.

It’s offered a platform for hearing different perspectives and finding areas that we can improve on.”

For leaders seeking to build trust and be a resource to their employees, Duke says to start with listening and being respectful.

“Don’t try to overtalk a situation,” he advises. “You have to respect why someone is coming to you—be patient and do a lot of active listening. It’s not about you or your opinion. It all starts with showing respect.”

Look at every situation like a learning opportunity, he adds. “You never stop learning. Listening to others and hearing their perspective is a part of that.”

FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE

Learn more at UKG.com

Troy Duke admits to being stunned when he was selected as 2022 HR Executive of the Year (Large Company) by Dallas HR. “When I found out, the shock on my face was so comical that my wife took a picture,” Duke recalls. “I said, ‘There’s no way.’ But it was cool to know that I’m doing what I love, what I’m passionate about, and being recognized for it.”

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P E O P L E + C O M PA N I E S

A American Chamber of Commerce, Dubai P57

B Botz, Lisa Bousaba, Sammy Buari, Raquel

P70 P57 P74

D DeThomasis, Marco Duke, Troy Duravant

P30 P82 P14

E EIS Inc.

P70

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P74 P41

G Gila River Resorts & Casinos

P61

M

Point In Time Studios (Villareal), Justin Stark and Jordan Stark/Nucleus Pictures (Foltz Stark)

MacLean-Fogg

P Plhak, Christina

P41

R Rush Street Interactive Russo, Michael

P65 P52

S Shift4 Stark, Stacey Foltz Strategic Education Stream Realty Partners

P52 P77 P61 P82

V P36

H Hodge, Khary

Malbasa, Kristin P20 Maricopa Community Colleges P46 Marqeta P10 Miller, Elizabeth P10

P20

Villareal, Robin

P36

W Walker, Chad WeWork Wierbicki, Paul Wilson, Frank

Robin Villareal CIO, Gila River Resorts & Casinos

P14 P77 P65 P46

P36

Stacey Foltz Stark, Global Head of IP, WeWork

P77

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Sixty issues.

Thirteen years.

One legacy.

As Profile’s print journey comes to an end, we’re reflecting on some of our favorite covers from the past decade

Q4/15 At Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, CFO Eric Anyah creates a masterpiece of financial strategy—and in turn, his cover won us a Merit Award from the Society of Publication Designers

McGraw-Hill Education’s Diane Adams knows just how to get people excited about what HR can do for them

Q2/21 Disruption isn’t for everyone, but it’s the only way hustler/influencer Gary Vaynerchuk knows how to live

Q1/19 From fashion trends to PayPal’s HR strategies, Doniel Sutton is used to setting new standards

Q3/22 “Circuit Breakers” marked the start of our digital era: a concept cover that inspired an online spin-off campaign dedicated to women in technology

Caleb Fox (Q4/15), Guerrero Media (Q4/17), Gillian Fry (Q1/19), Jason Morena (Q2/21), Anastasia Andronachi (Q3/22)

Q4/17

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