The Celebrating Resilience Luncheon is one of Resilience’s premier annual events.  Every year supporters, corporate and community partners, friends, and allies gather to celebrate an exemplary business leader who has demonstrated resilience throughout their career and is committed to supporting Resilience’s mission and vision.

Past Resilience speakers include Julie Smolyansky, President and CEO of Lifeway Foods and co-founder of Test400k, an organization dedicated to advocating ending the backlog of 400,000 untested rape kits in the United States, Susan Packard, Co-Founder of HGTV, and Tarana Burke, Me Too founder.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that Melissa Widen, Founder, Chief Administrative Officer & General Counsel of First Women’s Bank, will be our keynote speaker.  First Women’s Bank is the only commercial bank in the country founded, owned, and led by women with a strategic focus on the women’s economy.

We hope you will join us in person for this special and exclusive event.

Melissa Widen is Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel and a director of First Women’s Bank. Melissa is an attorney, entrepreneur and executive with over 25 years of business and legal experience. She was a founder and Managing Partner of Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, a trial and litigation boutique law firm based in Chicago. Functioning as the CEO for seven years, Melissa led the firm from a six-partner start-up to a top tier, nationally recognized law firm with 25 professionals and a roster of Fortune 500 clients. She served as senior litigation counsel for Arthur Andersen LLP, where she counseled senior firm management on legal, regulatory, and risk issues and advised on practice matters involving assurance, consulting, and tax services. Melissa was also a litigation associate at Jenner & Block. Ms. Widen is involved in many civic and community activities. She is a long-time board member and former board Chair of Personal PAC, a leading Illinois PAC focused on supporting women. She is a volunteer attorney with the ACLU’s Judicial Bypass Coordination Project, a Trustee of the Jewish Women’s Foundation, and Vice Chair for Domestic Affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Chicago. Melissa is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Maryland School of Law.

SPONSORS

Presenting

Leader

Partner

Mark Cohen

Ambassador

Vince Arrigo

Lucero Castellanos

Sarah King

Interested in sponsoring the event?  Contact Amy O'Keeffe.

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