Features May 2018

One year after what he regards as the biggest challenge of his career as an in-house lawyer, William Deckelman didn’t sound like one of his pending responsibilities would be too overwhelming. That was getting the firm he helped create through a complex 2017 merger compliant with the new privacy laws taking effect in late May […]

Even now, more than 20 years later, the memories are vivid and transporting. The overnight shifts that sap you to the core. The frightened families similarly weathered by lack of sleep. Those immense feelings of satisfaction and joy when the miracles of medicine are summoned. Cathy Mikus knows what it means to be a nurse. […]

It’s a not-for-profit company based in central Indiana with the most public of responsibilities and a membership of organizations with varied sizes and business models. Known as the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), it operates energy markets and runs the electric grid in the middle swath of North America that comprises 15 states from the […]

Even for the worldliest of folks, it can be an eye-opener to visit lands as challenged as some in Latin America. Having had his hands full since taking over the legal department of a global education and development organization last May, the very well-traveled Laurence Grayer wasn’t able to visit any of the countries serviced […]

You can learn a lot about someone from their LinkedIn page. Not just their core strengths and various alma maters, but how their career path foreshadows where they might be headed next. When one scans Nicolás Villarreal’s page, two things are immediately clear: He sees no need for a profile picture, and the three logos […]

Whenever Jaime Orvañanos visits one of his company’s far-flung offices, he always takes time to look around. Throughout the space, he sees architects and graphic designers, writers and engineers. Some work collaboratively; others on their own. The verve seems contagious; the air alive with ideas. Then it’s off to the next city, to Buenos Aires […]

Ideally located in East Harlem near the soon-to-be-opened Second Avenue subway stop, it was the right size, the right price, the right market—a place bound to sell in this up-and-coming neighborhood, Keyvan Ghaytanchi recalls about the property the company’s broker told him about on a Monday afternoon in 2017. Within hours, Ghaytanchi was sitting down […]

It was everything Fred Frankel could’ve hoped for: a well-paying job helping people, in a business he’d one day inherit—a group of Illinois nursing homes operated by his father, Charles Frankel, during the ‘80s and ‘90s. But when the elder Frankel passed away suddenly in 1997, complications with the business left Fred feeling disillusioned. Having […]

She might have met with the IT department to talk about system consolidation first thing in the morning. After lunch, perhaps it was reviewing proposals and contracts with the business department. Later that evening a call with the bank’s headquarters in Tokyo, where the next day’s business had already begun. In the months it took […]

Lisa Gressel knew what a big fire looked like. Truth be told, during her 30 years as a general counsel, she’d put out more than a few. Fires so big she can’t even talk about them. These were smaller than that—much smaller. A manager who left without telling his replacement about the patio furniture in […]