Features Region: Midwest

In 1935, deciding they’d rather pool their money to start a cooperative instead of putting it in a traditional bank, seven United Airlines employees launched Alliant Credit Union. The motto—“Be Bold”—drew Meredith Ritchie to the company in August 2007.  For the past 15 years, she’s helped Alliant grow safely and give customers competitive rates. On […]

Benajmin Franklin may have started the insurance industry in the U.S. in 1752, but Gerard Gregoire has been helping Allstate replace outdated traditions for over two decades. His method? Partnering with his teams for input, using more technology, cutting back on office space and incorporating artificial intelligence and automation. “I’ve invested 23 years of my […]

When Tiffany McMillan-McWaters relocated to Southeast Virginia from England with her husband in 2013, she encountered a difficult in-house legal market saturated with attorneys—and next to no job opportunities. Despite being well-versed in contract law, she applied for a job as a paralegal at Liberty Tax, a tax-preparation service company based in Virginia Beach. While […]

At some point, every person, everywhere needs a helping hand, but that help may be hard to get in underserved parts of the country. That’s been the experience of JoAnn Chávez, senior vice president and chief legal officer for Michigan-based Fortune 250 energy provider DTE, which is seeking to uplift young people in parts of […]

Putting together assembly lines at John Deere’s Georgia manufacturing plant might not seem like a springboard to a legal career. However, Jeff Midbo says this work helped him understand business processes, a crucial skill for an attorney when interpreting and applying laws to a company’s operations. Now the senior vice president, deputy general counsel and […]

Imagine being asked how to build a bridge so it meets state and federal regulations—after the materials and contractors have been chosen and the construction has already begun. That, says Carrie Benedict, is precisely what she and her team at KeyBank try to avoid when it comes to merger or acquisition deals. In the seven […]

As Ketan Shah looked forward to graduating with an accounting degree from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana in 2002, he envisioned a clear career path ahead of him. Then the path twisted—the accounting job he accepted with Arthur Andersen disappeared as the firm abruptly closed amid a scandal related to its work for Enron. While […]

A world without candy—a world without chocolate—feels unfathomable. Yet, it’s something Mars Wrigley and its assistant general counsel of cocoa and global initiatives, Stephanie Felicetty, are working daily to prevent. Just consider, she says, that cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana accounts for almost two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply, and both countries face […]

After nearly three decades of practicing energy law at firms and in-house, Wendy Ellis might have thought she had seen it all in this segment. Well, almost. Last summer her long-time employer, DTE Energy, spun off its natural gas pipeline, storage and gathering division into a separate publicly traded company. So, who better provide legal […]

The hemp is grown organically in southern France on farms that have been family-owned for generations. The acacia gum comes from trees harvested in Kenya. Both are ingredients for the rolling papers Republic Brands produces at a plant in Perpignan, France, which it’s owned for more than a century. In sum, it’s a “plant to […]