With more than 300 members, the Emerging Leaders community is a dynamic cross-sector network of Chicago’s visionary, globally minded, locally committed leaders.
Kendra Stead has extensive experience in every phase of litigation and typically represents companies and professional services firms in commercial disputes, securities litigation, and professional liability actions. She counsels corporate clients regarding their contractual rights and obligations and regularly pursues and defends large-scale contract disputes.
Based in Chicago, Julie Steffen-Layda leads the Midwest hub for the international desk for JLL. In this role, she is responsible for expanding the growth of the company's international business across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific regions. Before her move to Chicago, Steffen-Layda was part of the Palo Alto hub of the international desk.
Linhard Stepf, a 10-plus-year veteran in foreign direct investments and economic development marketing, is currently the vice president of VISTRA. Previously, he was president of FrankfurtRhineMain Corp., where his responsibilities included promoting the Frankfurt region (Germany) in North America and Brazil to recruit and attract companies for relocation or expansion.
Scott Stern, now a senior manager at Meta, was previously the director of innovation and insights at the American Marketing Association (AMA). He led an interdisciplinary team responsible for AMA's national analytics program and for converting customer insights into innovative experiences for AMA's 30,000 members and 250,000 non-member customers worldwide.
Previously, while at the American Jewish Committee, Amy Stoken managed their largest regional office, which included overseeing advocacy efforts with diplomats and faith-based leaders visiting or stationed in Chicago. She was also responsible for all Chicago-based programming and for the coordination of lay leader participation and activism.
Vidisha Suman is a partner with Kearney’s digital transformation practice in the Chicago office, with over 15 years of industry and consulting experience in the digital space. She regularly works with companies to help them become digitally enabled and position themselves for growth through digital business models, all while safeguarding their business from cyber exposure.
Before joining Invenergy, Robert Taylor led initiatives and advised senior Exelon leadership on broad energy issues, including electricity generation, efficiency, finance, markets, transmission, regulatory affairs, strategy, and policy development. Previously, he was an energy policy and programs manager with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and also has a background in radiation health physics.
During his consulting career, Yves Thill has had the opportunity to work with numerous leading companies across various industries on a range of issues. More recently, he has been focused on supply management in the consumer goods and retail industry, particularly in the food and beverage sector. Before joining A.T. Kearney, Thill worked in international banking in Europe.
Lisa G. Thomas has extensive experience in venture capital and private equity investing, governance, and operations in emerging markets. She is the founder and managing director of Samata Capital, a fund management company dedicated to making private sector investments in small and growing businesses in sub-Saharan Africa that advance opportunities for women and promote gender diversity.
As a partner at A.T. Kearney and former executive vice president of crisis, issues, and risk at Edelman, Jennifer Thompson develops strategy and mitigation solutions for corporate crisis and risk avoidance. Working with multinational clients to respond to situations and also proactively develop reputation management plans, she engaged Edelman's team to help guide the practice internationally.
