Diversity, Inclusion & Self-Care: Chicago [Virtual Summit]

Stephanie Vitale is Director, Safety & Insurance Litigation US East at Uber Technologies, Inc.  She oversees the eastern half of the United States for the insurance litigation team, which handles claims and litigation related to Uber’s U.S. insurance policies, both general liability and auto. Prior to joining Uber three years ago, she litigated insurance defense matters in Chicago, Illinois.

Desiree F. Moore is a litigation partner and a founding member of the firm’s Digital Crisis Planning & Response (DCPR) client solution. She counsels corporations, educational institutions, and high-profile individuals in proactively planning for and effectively managing digital crises of varying magnitudes, including data breach, online defamation, harassment, and impersonation, university and other education scandals, celebrity disgrace events, and leaked confidential and proprietary information. In this capacity, Ms. Moore also regularly helps clients proactively identify and manage the risks associated with social media use. Ms. Moore counsels individuals and corporations alike on social media best practices, how to effectively implement regulations for social media use in and outside of the workplace, and implementing discipline for unlawful social media use.

As a trial attorney, Ms. Moore has successfully litigated in state and federal court and has managed high-level disputes in sectors such as cryptocurrency, social media, intellectual property, entertainment, product liability, labor and employment, and class action defense at the trial and appellate court level. As a co-resident of the firm’s Doha, Qatar office, Ms. Moore also has extensive experience in domestic and international arbitration.

Ms. Moore is actively involved in the firm-wide Women in the Profession group and spearheads the Women’s Mastermind program, which supports the business development goals of women associates and partners. Ms. Moore is also the firm’s Director of Professional Development, where she oversees the implementation of innovative training and other programming for attorneys and staff across the firm.

Yinka Owolabi is Senior Counsel and Trust & Compliance Officer at IBM Corporation, where she manages complex legal and compliance matters and leads daily compliance operations for IBM’s healthcare and research focused business units.  Previously, Yinka had responsibility for enhancing IBM’s healthcare compliance program. In this capacity, she advised internal clients on legal and compliance issues relating to sales, marketing, research, and commercial operations, and provided strategic and tactical leadership in compliance program management, policy and procedure development, transparency reporting and daily compliance operations.

Prior to joining IBM, Yinka worked at a medical device company where she managed a U.S. compliance program in accordance with applicable laws and regulations consistent with best practices and industry guidance. She’s also worked at international law firms, where she provided transactional and regulatory counsel to a broad range of healthcare clients, including hospitals, managed care plans, academic medical centers, pharmacies, and life science companies.

Before going to law school, Yinka worked at Walgreens Health Initiatives, Inc., where she managed the implementation of pharmacy benefit programs and assisted clients in providing prescription drug coverage customized for Medicare and Medicaid populations.

Yinka earned her law degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Lake Forest College. While in law school, Yinka was a member of the Illinois Law Review and Editor in Chief of the Illinois Law Update publication of the Illinois Bar Journal. 

Yinka has been a Board Member of Trilogy Behavioral Healthcare since 2019, a non-profit organization that helps people recover from mental illness and reclaim with wellbeing. Yinka also serves as Chicago location lead for IBM’s Legal and Regulatory Affairs Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Belle Pereira is Senior Counsel for M&A at Whirlpool Corporation. Her responsibilities include global oversight and management for enterprise wide M&A initiatives and primary legal support for the Corporate Strategy team. Prior to joining Whirlpool in fall of 2016, she served as Assistant General Counsel for transactions at a Chicago Fintech company for several years. Before moving in-house, she focused on M&A, private equity/venture capital transactions and asset-based lending.

Joanne Moon is Senior Counsel at Uber Technologies, Inc.  She oversees a team of in-house attorneys and works closely with outside counsel to defend the company in Northeast U.S. claims litigation matters, which present a host of novel legal issues.  She is also a trusted advisor to her business counterparts, and is known for her ability to navigate complex legal issues with ease.  Joanne has a bachelors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.  In her free time, Joanne enjoys exploring Chicago with her husband and 2-year-old daughter, experimenting with new recipes, and trying new restaurants.

Stella M. B. Ferraro is a senior associate at Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd. She is experienced in trademark clearance and prosecution (U.S. and international), policing and enforcement, litigation, copyright, and unfair competition. She serves as a member of Leydig’s Recruiting and Diversity & Inclusion Committees. Mrs. Ferraro has also served as a tutor with Chicago Youth Programs (CYP) since 2011, and is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law.

Kristen Jones is a principal in the firm’s Litigation and Labor & Employment Groups.  Ms. Jones’ experience includes litigation of actions in jurisdictions throughout the country involving Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act (including class actions), the Equal Pay Act, breach of covenants-not-to-compete or other restrictive covenants, and various state law discrimination and wage and hour claims.  Ms. Jones represents clients before state and federal courts throughout the country, in addition to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and state fair employment practices agencies.  Ms. Jones also has commercial litigation experience, including representing clients at arbitration hearings for breach of contract disputes.   

Ms. Jones utilizes her employment litigation experience to counsel clients on terminations, personnel issues, wage and hour issues and their employment practices and policies in an effort to assist clients with avoiding litigation and minimizing exposure in the event of litigation.  Ms. Jones also effectively partners with her clients to conduct internal investigations and assist clients with uncovering facts to make informed decisions regarding personnel situations.   Additionally, Ms. Jones drafts and reviews employers’ handbooks and policy manuals; conducts FLSA classification audits; drafts employment and service agreements based on clients’ individualized needs; and provides training to client workforces, including on the topics of anti-harassment and anti-discrimination.

Beatrice L. James-Moore is Assistant Vice-President-Senior Legal Counsel with AT&T Services, Inc., where she provides legal counsel to members of AT&T’s Network Sourcing Group, which provides AT&T products and services to some of AT&T’s largest network integrator customers worldwide. Prior to joining this group, Beatrice worked with the government, education and medical sector clients where she provided counsel to sales members responsible for state and local government customers as well as large healthcare customers located in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. Beatrice was a founding member of the AT&T Legal Department Diversity Committee and is currently Co-Chair. She also participates in AT&T-sponsored Pro Bono activities. Beatrice joined AT&T, then Ameritech Corporation, in 1992. During her tenure with AT&T, Beatrice has held a variety of positions within the AT&T Legal Department. Prior to joining AT&T, she worked for Winston & Strawn in Chicago, IL and Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett in New York City.

Beatrice has actively participated in her community throughout her life. In addition to her current position as Vice Chair of the Just The Beginning Board, she is also an active member of Old St. Patrick’s Church and a former member of its Board of Trustees where she chaired the Diversity Committee. Beatrice also served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Latin School of Chicago and the Board of Directors of the Ronald McDonald House near the University of Chicago. She and her husband, David Moore, were mentors in the LINK Unlimited Program for 16 years, an educational enrichment program for underprivileged students identified in elementary or junior high school as potential high achievers. During their involvement with LINK, they sponsored four students by assisting with student tuition for private high school and staying actively involved in a mentoring capacity throughout the student’s high school years. Beatrice is also actively involved with the many service projects sponsored by AT&T, including the AT&T Believe Chicago Project. Beatrice is an active member of the Chicago Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Beatrice’s mission is to help individuals realize their true potential. With more than 25 years in corporate America, she has mentored numerous individuals in the corporate ranks and assisted and encouraged others to pursue both corporate and entrepreneurial goals.

Beatrice is married to David Moore, a Chicago businessman/entrepreneur. They have two children, Tayla Claire (23 years old) and David Reese (21 years old).

Beatrice earned a BS in Elementary Education from Louisiana State University, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago.

TiShaunda McPherson currently serves as Corporate Counsel for Adtalem Global Education where she advises the organization on matters impacting or involving Adtalem’s global workforce.  She also serves on the Integrity & Compliance team, which is tasked with strengthening the organization’s compliance functions and maintaining a culture of integrity.  Prior to this role, Ms. McPherson served as the inaugural Director of Adtalem’s Office of Equity and Access, in which she led strategic planning and implementation of antidiscrimination compliance programs across six institutions. 

Before joining Adtalem, Ms. McPherson was Senior Attorney for the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, where she advised the Department’s senior officials on regional trends and high profile cases, supervised attorneys and staff on case resolution, investigated and mediated complex allegations of discrimination, and delivered internal and external compliance seminars.

Ms. McPherson started her legal career as a Litigation Associate at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons) and at Kirkland & Ellis LLP.  She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., who now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  She remains active in local and national bar associations, has been a member of several non-profit boards, and is a regular volunteer in the community.

Gray has more than a decade of experience representing employers in workplace litigation, handling labor relations disputes and providing strategic counsel on labor and employment law issues. She advises clients in a broad range of industries including education, software and technology services, real estate, financial services, retail and manufacturing. Gray tailors her solution-oriented counsel to the particular needs of each client, considering the nuances of their business in order to deliver advice that is practical and in line with their goals, values and culture. Gray is the regional practice lead for the firm’s Labor & Employment Department for the Chicago office.

A native Spanish speaker from the Dominican Republic, Gray is adept at providing Spanish language representation to clients. She works fluently with Spanish language witnesses and documents, including document review, depositions, mediations, administrative proceedings, internal investigations and employment as well as various types of training.