Features February 2021

The cement industry isn’t always perceived as environmentally benign, but Melissa Díaz Artavia is quick to emphasize the sustainable aspects of her employer’s business model. As she tells Vanguard, the Costa Rican division of Swiss-based building materials and aggregates company, LafargeHolcim, seeks to develop sustainable projects to optimize its production while engaging in a coprocessing […]

If you are a Wisconsin resident who’s fallen on hard times due to health issues, your whole world might fall apart. If you’re late with the rent, you could even face eviction—which could hurt your health even further. But through Milwaukee-based Independent Care Health Plan “iCare”—now a wholly owned subsidiary of Humana Inc.—innovative programs are […]

David A. Hitchens has been through industry downturns before, having joined the legal staff of JLL in the midst of the Great Recession. By revenue, the Chicago-based JLL is the world’s second largest commercial real estate company, and its properties endured higher vacancies and lower leases as so many industries cut back between 2007 and […]

Evening sales at Christie’s in New York City are not to be missed, a highlight of the social calendar where billionaires are ready to raise their paddles and bid on rare and obscure objects—art by DaVinci or Picasso, jewelry, and recently, an artifact from the Jurassic period. But all that changed in 2020 when the […]

Kindel Nuno vividly remembers the day she interviewed for the general counsel role at Mattress Firm in 2012. Despite her extensive legal background, former CEO Steve Stagner worried that she lacked the needed business experience. Still, as Nuno walked out the door of his office, Stagner told her, “We’ll take a chance on you.” By […]

The lack of life-sustaining ventilators became obvious in 2020 with the onset of COVID-19, launching General Electric on a mission to produce and distribute the much-needed devices to hospitals worldwide. It’s been a challenge, to say the least, says General Electric Healthcare Mexico Senior Legal Counsel Vanessa Manrique—noting the trade war going on between the […]

  She calls it SEC speech—and there are no Rosetta Stone classes to learn it. Lisa A. Gok picked it up during her 11 years as an assistant regional director for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Los Angeles and it has served her well in subsequent jobs. Maybe especially so at Cetera Financial […]

No single project can make a career for a real estate attorney, but each can end one. Sean Dennison kept this in mind as his company embarked on the first phase of the massive mixed-use redevelopment in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Washington. The Village at Totem Lake it’s called, and since commencing in 2015, […]

Though the timing is ideal, there’s not an hour—much less a day—to waste. So emphasizes Jimmie Strong in January while speeding from his Memphis home to Nashville. It’s in Music City where he’s grooming the U.S. affiliate to a Mexican manufacturer of industrial and personal sanitizing solutions and wipes. The need for such wares has […]

Brandon Fairless remembers a teambuilding exercise in his first two weeks at CHS Therapy & Rehab. The CEO asked her executive team: “What do you rebel against?” For Fairless, the answer was easy. It was complacency. Since his arrival five months ago at the post-acute therapy organization, he has gotten to work as its first […]