2012 Panel
 Carol Ryan
Vice President, The Family Business Consulting Group
Carol Ryan has over twenty years of experience working with families and their businesses in a variety of contexts.
Ms. Ryan worked eight years for her own family’s manufacturing business in Omaha, NE. She was involved in both domestic and international marketing and sales, as a sales manager as well as a product manager. Ms. Ryan continues to support her family’s business as an owner and advisor to the Board. In addition, Ms. Ryan worked in a variety of other familyowned businesses in the medical industry in marketing and sales positions.
More recently, Ms. Ryan was the Director of Membership at the internationally recognized Loyola University Chicago Family Business Center. In addition to consultative roles with the Center’s member business-owning families, she was a frequent lecturer/educator on family firm matters. Ms. Ryan also served as a coach and facilitator for the eighteen month Next Generation Leadership Institute, the first program of its kind for developing leadership in family business.
Ms. Ryan also oversaw the annual Family Business Network Conference held in Chicago and co-sponsored by Loyola University Chicago Family Business Center. The Family Business Network is the premier international consortium of leading business-owning families.
A graduate of Creighton University School of Law, Carol has also earned Master’s degrees in Marital and Family Therapy and Organizational Development, from The Family Institute at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and Loyola University Chicago, respectively. In her current position as Vice President of the Family Business Consulting Group she will be focused on Family Governance and Boards of Directors for family owned businesses, a premiere offering of the Family Business Consulting Group.
Ms. Ryan will also be working with University – based family business programs and trade groups designing and delivering outstanding educational programs to audiences of business-owning families around the globe.
 Paula A. Sneed
Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Phelps Prescott Group
Paula Sneed is the chairperson and CEO of Phelps Prescott Group, a Strategy and Management Consultancy she co-founded in 2007. Previously, Sneed served as Executive Vice President, Global Marketing Resources and Initiatives and a member of the Management Committee of Kraft Foods, Inc. In that role she was responsible for worldwide leadership and oversight of Marketing Resources functions including Consumer Insights & Strategy, Media, Advertising, Digital and Consumer Relationship Marketing, Packaging and Brand Design, Consumer Promotions, Marketing Alliances, Kitchens, Consumer Relations, and other marketing disciplines for more than 100 major food brands.
Sneed joined General Foods, which merged with Kraft Foods, after graduate school and, for over 25 years, held a variety of marketing, general management and senior executive roles including the company’s Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of several divisions.
Sneed is a director of Airgas, Inc., Charles Schwab Corporation, and TE Connectivity. She is the vice chair of the national board of trustees of Teach For America, a trustee of the Teach For America Chicago region, and Simmons College. She is a member of the Harvard Business School Visiting Committee and the Executive Leadership Council. She is a big sister volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lake County, Illinois.
She is a former member of the board of directors of Hercules and Communispace and a former trustee of the Chicago Children’s Museum, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the American Marketing Association, and Fairfield Westchester County INROADS.
Sneed earned a BA in social science from Simmons College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has an honorary degree in Business Administration from Johnson and Wales University.
 Virginia (Ginger) Johnson Pillman
President, Virginia M. Johnson & Associates, Inc
Ginger Pillman is President of Virginia M. Johnson & Associates, a firm that is dedicated to providing vision, strategy, and expert counsel to multi-generational families and privately held companies including expertise in the complex governance, succession, estate planning, and income tax issues.
Ginger serves on the Board of Directors of David Vaughan Investments, a privately held investment company, and previously served on the Board of Directors of Travers Trust Company. She is past Chair of the Board for Metropolitan Family Services of Chicago, a Trustee at Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Northwestern Memorial Healthcare, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
She began her career at Ernst & Young. She was one of the first female tax partners, a Founder of the Entrepreneurial Service Group and a member of the National Tax Education Committee.
She spent 15 years as CEO of the Family Office for a high net worth family whose primary assets are operating companies. She worked with strategic issues affecting the companies and critical Governance issues facing a family owned company moving from nuclear family ownership to multigenerational family ownership. She was a member of the Family Office Exchange US Council and their Advisory Board and next generation education task force.
Ginger has an MBA with Honors in Finance from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, a BS with Highest Honors from Purdue University and attended Denison University. She is a CPA, a member of Chicago Finance Exchange and is on their board access committee.
Panel Facilitator
 Pamela McElvane
CEO, Diversity MBA
Pamela McElvane is CEO of Diversity MBA a Chicago based business offering an innovative approach to diversity business solutions, serving Fortune 1000 companies. Pam believes people and inclusion are an organization’s most valued assets.
Diversity MBA Magazine a global leadership publication, serving 1.5 million online is the flagship product of Diversity MBA. Diversity MBA’s Business Leaders Awards Gala and Leadership Forum has proven to be one of the top executive multicultural leadership B2B events in the country; other key services include branded services DMBA Consulting, DMBA Publishing and DMBA Benchmarking. These products and services are designed to recognize diverse leadership and women among corporate America’s emerging and executive leaders for their outstanding contributions and companies for their commitment to diversity. The Leadership forum and publication is being cited as one of the most intellectually stimulating diverse executive leadership forums and publications today. DiversityMBA Magazine ranks the 50 Out Front companies for the Best Places for Diverse Manages to Work. One of the most noted rankings by Corporate America. She also the only brand that recognizes the Top 100 leaders who hold advanced degrees while achieving excellence. Her company also publishes Minority Executive Leadership Online Journal; a thought leadership reviewed publication; and www.diversitymbamagazine.com; was cited as one of the best social media connected websites. She has received a host of awards and frequently speaks on radio talk shows, seminars and conferences. She sits on 5 Boards serving companies, communities and educational institutions. Pam holds an MBA in Finance and International Marketing from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Pam is a mother of two boys Joshua 11 and Cameron 8 who are bilingual.
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