I founded Lakewood Strategy & Consulting after a 30-year, non-traditional career as a senior corporate legal/business leader, litigator and CPA. I chose to focus in two distinct areas that really make me tick. Lakewood Legal Innovation leverages my experience as a GC in assessing, structuring, growing and retaining best-in-class legal teams/service models to guide innovative General Counsel and law firms. Lakewood Strategy helps clients set/execute high-stakes advocacy, crisis and influencing strategy for regulatory/legislative/competitive challenges. I committed to this work because, when done well, it delivers meaningful change for clients, stakeholders, customers and teams.

My niche is advising clients operating in complex regulatory/political environments and undergoing significant change/challenge. I’ve served as a change agent as General Counsel, Chief Litigation/Regulatory Counsel and lead of Government/Public Affairs with iconic Fortune 200 and private growth brands (Kellogg’s, WellCare Health Plans, Health Care Service Corp. (5 major Blue Cross plans) and Catalina Marketing ($550M global company)). I began my career as a CPA and practiced tax/commercial litigation for 10 years at Sonnenschein (Dentons) and Baker McKenzie.

Signature representations include (1) advocacy before Congress, state/federal regulators/legislators, AGs, NGOs and global institutions including the WHO; (2) food/product recalls/safety issues including the 6th largest US food recall; (3) M&A/transaction regulatory approvals; (4) health care regulation and CPG challenges, including advertising and product safety; and (4) high-stakes crisis and PR challenges, investigations and reputation management.

I champion women’s issues and enjoy philanthropic board work. I spend time in St. Pete and Chicago, where I spent most of my career and attended undergraduate (Loyola), graduate (DePaul) and law school (Northwestern).

After a long and diverse corporate career in legal and business leadership roles, I decided to take the plunge and focus on the areas I love most from that experience, advocacy strategy for difficult corporate, industry and regulatory issues, including crisis management, and building and growing high performing in house legal teams. I have a demonstrated track record of generating wins, optimizing legal resources and savings and innovatively approaching issues based on my legal and C-suite experience, but without a "traditional" lawyer mindset. I focus on getting to yes as efficiently and effectively as possible.