International Women's Leadership Forum - East Coast 2021

Chehrazade Chemcham

senior counsel, trademarks & marketing & licensing, Colgate Palmolive

Chehrazade Chemcham is Senior Trademark and Marketing Counsel at Colgate-Palmolive Company (“CP”) advising CP businesses on all types of trademark, copyright, right of publicity issues, as well as legal marketing issues and transactional/contracts matters. In this role, she is responsible for the worldwide management and enforcement of CP’s Home Care, Personal Care, Pet Food and Filorga brands.

Before joining CP, Chehrazade was Senior IP Enforcement counsel for Louis Vuitton and Senior Associate at Fulbright and Jaworski LLP. At Louis Vuitton, she was responsible for the enforcement of Louis Vuitton and LVMH fashion brands’ marks, designs and copyrights, including managing US IP litigation for the fashion design group. At Fulbright, Chehrazade handled trademark clearance and prosecution, trademark transactional work, trademark and copyright litigation and enforcement for various firm clients.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Chehrazade was Manager of European Affair for the International Trademark Association (“INTA”). While at INTA she was responsible for managing INTA policy work in Europe and INTA committees dedicated to European policy issues.

Chehrazade holds a J.D. from Rutgers Law School and a Masters Degree in European Geopolitics and History from French Universities.

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Danielle Coleman

assistant general counsel, VM Ware

TBC

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Stephanie Vaccari

partner, Baker McKenzie

TBC

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Jessica Falk

partner, Weil Gotshal & Manges

TBC

 Speaking session 

Leadership and managing your IP career

Thursday, June 10 - 2.10 - 3.00 EST

Rebecca Givner-Forbes

associate, cooley

Rebecca Givner-Forbes is a senior associate in Cooley’s Trademark, Copyright, and Advertising group. She represents clients in trademark, copyright, and false advertising cases in federal court and in oppositions and cancellations before the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. She also advises on trademark clearance and prosecution, copyright registration, IP licensing and due diligence issues for acquisitions.

 Speaking session 

Managing brand protection and enforcement in the post-pandemic world

Thursday, June 10 - 11.40 - 12.30 EST

Chao Wendy Wang

partner, Perkins Coie

TBC

 Speaking session 

Resolving global IP disputes

Thursday, June 10 - 09.10 - 10.00 EST

Sara Vinarov

global intellectual property counsel, Tate & Lyle Ingredients

Sara Dastgheib-Vinarov J.D., Ph.D., global legal head of intellectual property, Tate & Lyle Ingredients Americas LLC.

As global legal head of intellectual property for Tate & Lyle (headquartered in London, England), Dastgheib-Vinarov is responsible for educating and engaging employees to foster a culture of innovation, directing IP strategy, portfolio management, monetization efforts and guiding global defense and enforcement of Tate & Lyle’s worldwide intellectual property assets for all business platforms.

Dastgheib-Vinarov is a registered attorney with the US Patent & trademark Office and has over 20 years of experience in the intellectual property field. Prior to joining Tate & Lyle, Dastgheib-Vinarov was in private practice, as a partner in the Intellectual Property group of the national law firm Quarles & Brady, where she primarily advised universities and emerging companies in the biotechnology field, specifically, stem cells, structural genomics and proteomics. Notably, in 2004, she wrote a seminal paper on the patentability of structural genomics and proteomics, and was invited to the National Academy of Sciences, where she shared her global insights with the nation's policy makers.

Sara earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Trinity University in Texas, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a law degree from Marquette University. Dastgheib-Vinarov lives in downtown Chicago with her family.

 Speaking session 

Resolving global IP disputes

Thursday, June 10 - 09.10 - 10.00 EST

Nishat Ruiter

general counsel, TED Conferences

Nishat Ruiter is General Counsel of TED Conferences, LLC a nonprofit organization that believes passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. Through creativity, and a deep respect for TED's mission, Nishat's work is centered on ensuring that TED's legal requirements are met through a combination of practical and creative solutions that meets its needs, while still retaining the authentic TED voice across every area where possible. She manages a team to address all legal issues concerning TED including licensing, partnerships, TM, brand protection, TED's code of conduct, data privacy, copyright, transactions and all corporate legal matters. Prior to TED, she worked for over 19 years as in house counsel, and in private practice including working for 10 years as Associate General Counsel at a Fortune 500 software technology company in a variety of roles including managing the North American legal department of 25 lawyers and contract managers, advising on regulatory compliance issues for government sales, and for marketing, advertising and social media. She serves on the board of Choose, a not for profit that focuses on building tools to address social justice, currently racial literacy in education, workplace and communities, a visiting guest lecturer at Fordham Law School (New York), and the Editorial Board of the International In-house Counsel Journal (London). Inspired by a Bahá’í perspective on things, she connects justice and equity through her work, community and family life and aims to build authentic paths of change towards the betterment of humanity where she can.

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Leadership and managing your IP career

Thursday, June 10 - 2.10 - 3.00 EST

Sunah Lee

senior attorney, Microsoft

TBC

 Speaking session 

Leadership and managing your IP career

Thursday, June 10 - 2.10 - 3.00 EST

Nicole Spence

intellectual property attorney, IBM

Nicole A. Spence is currently practicing as an intellectual property attorney in the Cloud and Cognitive Solutions Brand team at IBM, where she works closely with the business team, as well as the inventor and developer communities at the Data & AI - Watson AI, The Weather Company, and the Talent Management business units. Prior to IBM, Nicole practiced as a litigator for more than seven years, where she manage all phases of litigation including discovery, settlement agreements and trials in intellectual property and insurance defense. She was also established her own practice, The Spence Law Group PLLC, where she advised start-ups and small to medium-sized business clients in tech, entertainment, fashion and culinary arts in various matters pertaining to intellectual property and corporate law.

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Leslie Nettleford

associate general counsel, AARP

TBC

 Speaking session 

Managing brand protection and enforcement in the post-pandemic world

Thursday, June 10 - 11.40 - 12.30 EST

Susan Hallen

associate partner, AI workflows, IBM

Ms. Hallen is a Sales and Delivery Associate Partner in the AI Workflows team. She focuses on bringing repeatable AI assets to market including IP Advisor with Watson, Outside Counsel Insights, and IBM Text to Insights. She manages design and implementation of Intellectual Property processes and tools, leveraging the IP Management solutions suite of consulting services. She also leads teams of consultants in IP transformation and business transformation internationally.

Her expertise ranges from Innovation/Product Development to Geographic Information Systems to Intellectual Property across multiple industries.

Ms. Hallen has a broad 40+ year background based in engineering and design, and for the past 11 years focused on IP Licensing and Management. She is a member of the IBM Industry Academy. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Structural (Civil) Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration in addition to being a Licensed Professional Engineer in the United States.

 Speaking session 

The future of technology, data and IP

Thursday, June 10 - 1.00 - 1.50 EST

Jennifer Davis

counsel – patents, Spotify

TBC

 Speaking session 

The future of technology, data and IP

Thursday, June 10 - 1.00 - 1.50 EST

Carole Boelitz

executive director, IP, Lenovo

Carole Boelitz is the Executive Director – IP at Lenovo. She is a practicing corporate and patent attorney with 20+ years experience in all aspects of intellectual property protection, strategy and law. Prior to joining Lenovo, she was VP of IP for a start up packaging company, Chief IP counsel for a start up nuclear development company, and lead IP counsel for Microsoft Research worldwide. Prior to her attorney life, Carole also served in the Us Air Force developing classified satellite systems. Carole is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, MIT, and Harvard Law.

 Speaking session 

Leadership and managing your IP career

Thursday, June 10 - 2.10 - 3.00 EST

Svetlana Tsareva

general counsel, skin care, prestige and head of brand protection, Unilever

TBC

 Speaking session 

Managing brand protection and enforcement in the post-pandemic world

Thursday, June 10 - 11.40 - 12.30 EST

Nicolette Hudson

VP – lead IP counsel, L Brands

Nicolette (“Nikki”) is lead intellectual property counsel for Bath & Body Works Brand Management, Inc. Nikki has over 20 years of experience counseling business partners in all facets of intellectual property strategy, protection, and enforcement, as well as marketing, advertising and privacy matters. She has experience leading teams in both law firm and in-house environments and values opportunities to position her team and business partners for success.

Outside of her legal practice, Nikki is a champion of public education and currently serves as a member of her local Board of Education.

 Speaking session 

Focus sessions

Thursday, June 10 - 10.20 - 11.10 EST

Dana Vallera

senior counsel, litigation, Corning International

TBC

 Speaking session 

Resolving global IP disputes

Thursday, June 10 - 09.10 - 10.00 EST

Danielle Benecke

senior associate, Baker McKenzie

TBC

Her expertise ranges from Innovation/Product Development to Geographic Information Systems to Intellectual Property across multiple industries.

 Speaking session 

The future of technology, data and IP

Thursday, June 10 - 1.00 - 1.50 EST