Translating Strategy to Numbers: Communicating Effectively with Your CFO

Ms. Jones joined KLDiscovery in 2006 in a sales role, where she was responsible for generating new business from Am Law 100 law firms and Fortune 500 corporations. During her tenure with KLDiscovery, Ms. Jones has consistently created opportunities, developed new clients and increased the company’s client base by delivering tailored solutions and service excellence. She is a top producing sales representative in the organization, focused on corporate accounts.

Today, Ms. Jones is Chief Revenue Officer where she is responsible for KLDiscovery's global sales organization for the Legal Technologies and Data Recovery businesses. In this role, she is responsible for developing, implementing and executing a global sales and revenue strategies across the entire organization.

Additionally, Ms. Jones is responsible for KLDiscovery's global sales operations teams who support the business development managers in delivering best-in-class service to their clients. She continues to maintain, and grow, her existing book of business.

Ms. Jones has been in the industry at KLDiscovery for two decades and has held various leadership positions throughout the company's thirteen acquisitions and integrations.

Ms. Jones holds a dual degree in Marketing Management from Virginia Tech.

Ms. McPherson is the General Counsel of Ligado Networks, a mobile communications company that operates a satellite network across North America. Before joining Ligado, Ms. McPherson was Senior Counsel at MedStar Health, a regional healthcare system in the metropolitan DC area.

Prior to that, she spent nearly 20 years in private practice. She transitioned from private practice from Greenberg Traurig where she was a shareholder based in Washington, DC. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and is a graduate of the University of Virginia School. Ms. McPherson is a member of the Washington DC Bar Association and Virginia Bar Association. She has served on multiple nonprofit boards, including ACCESS Foundation. She has been an active volunteer voting rights advocate since 2001.

Maria Dinzeo is a reporter at ALM Global.

Tamela Merriweather is Senior Vice President, Assistant General Counsel at The Northern Trust Company. She is a respected legal advisor in the industry and serves in a leadership role for the Risk Management Association’s Securities Lending Council. Prior to joining Northern Trust, Tamela was an associate at Mayer Brown LLP and clerked for the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Tamela is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) and previously served as co-chair of its Diversity Committee. Tamela’s recent recognitions include participating in McKinsey & Company’s Black Executive Leadership Program (2021), receiving NAWL’s Virginia S. Mueller Outstanding Member Award (2019), and completing the Leading Women Executives program (2018-19).

Tamela graduated with honors from Spelman College and the University of Minnesota Law School. She is a native of San Diego and has lived in Chicago for most of her career.

Laurie Ehrlich is Chief Legal Officer at Dioptra, the most accurate and reliable AI-powered contract review tool, trusted by in-house teams and law firms. Laurie has a passion for creation and transformation. She focuses on creating value and better solutions for her business partners through cross-functional and intradepartmental collaboration while protecting against potential risks.

Prior to joining Dioptra, she was Chief Commercial Counsel at Datadog, where she implemented processes and technology to scale better and close contracts faster. Earlier in her career, Laurie realized her passion for legal operations and established the Legal Operations function at Cognizant so that she could focus on her passion projects, knowledge management and process optimization to drive more efficient legal support for commercial transactions powered by common sense and data analytics.

Prior to running the LegalOps function at Cognizant, Laurie was Chief Counsel for Cognizant’s North America Insurance vertical where she served as a business-savvy, trusted advisor to her business teams and a mentor for many of Cognizant’s junior attorneys. Laurie also served as the Executive Sponsor for Women of Datadog and the NYC Regional Lead for Cognizant's Women Empowered. Before going in-house, Laurie was the first US intellectual property specialist at Allen & Overy after starting her career on the IP team at Schulte, Roth, and Zabel.

Laurie received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.S. from Cornell University - School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where she focused on organizational behavior.