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Leading the Way 2019 - Sponsored by: Loraine Ballard Morrill Salima Suswell
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or almost two generations of Philadelphians, listening to the radio has meant being touched by Loraine Ballard Morrill in some way. Since beginning at Power 99 as the news director on Jan. 13, 1983 – the ageless Morrill remembers her start date like it was yesterday – she has been the Northern Star of the airwaves. Morrill, the director of news and community affairs for all six of iHeartRadio’s Philadelphia stations, is still the voice of the newscasts – including breaking news – for them, and she is also the host of the weekly public affairs programs “Insight” and “What’s Going On.” It’s a far cry from her days at the University of Maryland student-run ra-
LORAINE BALLARD MORRILL: “I discovered that information is a great way to serve a community.”
dio station and from her first job as news director for a Boston public radio station, but Morrill still appreciates her journey, especially how she has been the first woman of color in her position at every station she has worked at, and how her persistence and success have allowed her to use the power of radio to benefit the community listening to her
Laura Princiotta P H IL LY R E CO R D.C O M - 215 -755 -20 0 0
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and her colleagues. Early on in her career, she says, “I discovered that information is a great way to serve a community. A well-informed community is able to make the best kinds of decisions for themselves. That’s how I got engaged in the radio thing: I can take information that hasn’t always been available to everybody and provide an outlet for that, and also give people a platform to share what they do and how they’re helping people.” One of the ways she ensures this collaborative relationship between stations and listeners remains strong is by supporting community groups and maintaining a constant presence at events. For (Cont. Page 12)
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n argument could be made that Salima Suswell owes her successful career to her daughter Laila. If it weren’t for her thenschool-aged child’s reluctance to leave her friends and her hometown, Suswell wouldn’t have turned down an offer to rise up the ladder with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where she was a senior litigation specialist. As Suswell tells it: “I was doing health care fraud investigations for the US Attorney’s Office here and they asked me to move to Washington, D.C. My daughter wasn’t thrilled at leaving Philadelphia, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start my own firm.” That firm, Evolve Solu-
SALIMA SUSWELL: I thought it was the perfect opportunity to start my own firm.”
tions, has become one of the city’s go-to political consultancies, specializing in project management, government relations, community engagement, and event production. In other words: It’s a long way from Suswell’s childhood dream of becoming a lawyer, which she was on track to do until her decision to leave the U.S. Attor-
ney’s office – and to heed the advice of a number of her lawyer friends, who advised her in no uncertain terms that she would be better off pursuing her J.D. In fact, she began Evolve as a way to package legal services like litigation and trial services, but she quickly found that her background in the city’s political arena – including work with Committee of Seventy and her long friendship with state Sen. Sharif Street – led to her current specialization. In addition to consulting for a number of mahoffs in the city and state, Suswell has made a name for herself as a tireless advocate for her nonprofit work, especially for the city’s Muslim community. In addition to (Cont. Page 10)