What was your route to the top? The route to the top was certainly not a simple ladder. It would have been easy if I could have just put one foot in front of the other and made my way up, rung by rung. Instead, I had to do it my way which often felt like scaling a rocky mountain with my bare hands. As someone who is first in her family to go to college, let alone graduate or law school, my career has been one of overcoming and one of survival. No one ever told me I could do it. In fact, they often told me the opposite. But that is certainly where sheer will and grit help to propel you forward. My goal now is just to ensure more women will follow.

What keeps you up at night? (i.e. What are your biggest business-related concerns?) I think the single biggest thing that keeps me up at night is knowing that not much has changed in terms of diversity since I graduated law school. I have spent so many years fighting to change perceptions and beliefs, and trying to help women and minorities excel. People like to “say” how much they are making a difference—they like to point to programs and policies that are in place that demonstrate that things are different. All of those things are just shields built on rhetoric. We need everyone focusing each and every step on action grounded in accountability. It is the only way that things are ever going to change.

What is the best leadership advice you provided, or received, and why do you think it was effective? The leadership advice that I live by and always give to others is to be your most authentic self. You should never let a law firm you work for define who you are or who you should be. At least, once you have made it to the top, you will know you have made it by being who you want to be and not what someone else made you become.

Looking back, what do you wish you had known when you started out in the legal profession? The Truth.

What is the most valuable career advice anyone has ever given you? Do not let others tell you what you can and cannot do.