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Kate Smith

Kate Smith is Assistant Athletic Director for the David G. Kabiller NU for Life Program at Northwestern University.

Smith leads the Wildcats industry-leading professional development program for student-athletes following nearly a decade of experience in Evanston as Assistant Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Her leadership tenure helped the world-renowned business school, from which she also earned her MBA, increase both the quality and diversity of its student population.

Prior to Kellogg, Smith was a senior director of marketing for Gatorade, one of several leadership roles she held over a 14-year marketing career working for some of the biggest consumer brands in America at P&G, General Mills, and PepsiCo.

Smith holds her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. And as a graduate of the University of Illinois, she had a decorated career on the Illini women’s basketball team, serving as a captain and earning three Academic All-Big Ten awards as well as the Big Ten Medal of Honor, the Conference’s most prestigious recognition.

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Amanda Vinicky

Amanda Vinicky is a correspondent and segment host who focuses primarily on Illinois government and politics—though her insatiable curiosity leads her to cover a little bit of everything. Vinicky joined “Chicago Tonight” in 2017, after spending a decade as the Statehouse Bureau Chief for NPR Illinois and the Illinois Public Radio network. She also co-hosted WSEC-TV’s “CapitolView,” and was a regular analyst on the “State Week” roundtable. Her work and analysis has been featured on shows including NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “The Takeaway,” and she’s garnered top honors from the Illinois Associated Press and the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. Vinicky received her master’s degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois Springfield and has degrees in political science and journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She began her career in the Chicago suburbs (where she grew up) as a newspaper reporter. She loves mustard, hot sauce, podcasts, yoga and traveling (though she doesn’t do nearly enough of it). Vinicky’s always looking for stories to tell, foods to try, books to read and new places to discover, so get in touch: @AmandaVinicky, avinicky@wttw.com, 773-509-5461.

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Tamara Bohlig

As a public board director, chief marketing officer, and private investor, Tamara Bohlig has helped drive billions in aggregate revenue and accumulated assets under management for companies at the intersection of technology, financial services, and consumer products.

Over her thirty-year career, Tamara has led corporate and product marketing teams in developing, launching, and managing more than 30 enterprise and consumer products and services, including the marketing of 250+ investment products and 100+ platform services.

Today, Tamara serves as an Independent Board Director for Axos Financial, a publicly-traded fintech company. She is also owner operator of IMAGE Studios 360 in San Ramon, established to help women entrepreneurs thrive on their own terms.

Earlier, Tamara served as CMO of AssetMark and SmartBiz Loans, helping the former take its asset management platform public on the New York Stock Exchange. She also served as a senior executive across business development, client experience, and marketing for Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.’s investor retail and investment management divisions.

Her early career included vice president roles in marketing for JPMorgan Chase, N.A. (formerly WaMu and Providian), as well as product management, sales, and marketing roles for Hewlett-Packard, P&G, and General Mills.

Tamara holds two degrees from Northwestern University, including an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management, and a bachelor of arts in sociology. She attributes her career-long team leadership approach to her time as a dual-sport athlete at Northwestern, where she played lacrosse and earned All-American honors in field hockey and a trip to the Final Four. Tamara’s daughter, Emerson, is currently a sophomore on Northwestern’s lacrosse team.

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Sammy Nettling

Sammy Nettling is a Customer Success Manager at Google where she has worked in the AdTech space since graduating in 2018. She supports some of the largest accounts in their retail sector, including Amazon, Target, and Home Depot, by managing and optimizing the unification of their advertising and analytics products within the Google Marketing Platform. Sammy has also led multiple DEI contributions across the LatinX, Women@ and PRIDE@ Google communities, leaning into the community building space that was so prevalent throughout her time in Evanston.

While at Northwestern, Sammy served as an Executive Board member on both the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and NU for Life’s Advisory Board, and was also a student athlete representative on the NCAA Competition Oversight Committee. She was a 2x Big Ten Distinguished Scholar, and was awarded the Pomeranz Family Willie Award during her senior season. She continues to keep softball close to her heart, spending the majority of her spring months as the Big Ten Network’s studio analyst and a broadcaster for their in-conference productions, most recently covering the 2022 Wildcats on their return to Oklahoma City.

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Meghan McKeown

Meghan McKeown is a sports broadcaster and basketball analyst for the Big Ten Network, ESPN, Field of 68, and the Chicago Sky. Although she loves covering college football and men’s college hoops, her passion is rooted in growing women’s sports.

A Northwestern University class of 2014 graduate, Meghan played on the basketball team and served as a captain her senior year. She received her degree from the Medill School of Journalism.

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Janna Blais

Deputy Director of Athletics (Administration and Policy)/SWA Janna Blais began her Northwestern career on February 15, 2010. As Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator at Northwestern, Blais leads and manages five departments for the Wildcats: compliance, academic services and student development, sports medicine, sports performance, and the David G. Kabiller NU for Life Program. She serves as the department’s liaison at Big Ten and NCAA meetings, and internally, is the liaison to the admissions, financial aid, provost, general counsel, dean of students and student conduct offices, as well as the Committee for Athletics and Recreation (CAR). Blais also manages and leads the sport administrator program for the department and works directly with women’s basketball and the women’s lacrosse program.

From February 2021 through April 2021 Blais served as the Interim Combe Family Vice President for Athletics and Recreation at Northwestern. In addition to her responsibilities in Evanston, Blais has been a leader in the broader landscape of college athletics in a variety of ways. In the summer of 2021, she was selected by the Women Leaders in College Sports Board of Directors (a board she has now been appointed to) to serve a three-year term as the Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) Appointee on the 24-seat NCAA Division I Board of Directors. Then in January of 2022 she was appointed to the 21-seat NCAA Division I Transformation Committee charged with providing recommendations to the NCAA Board of Directors that seeks to embrace forward-looking change during unprecedented times in intercollegiate athletics.

Blais works closely with the Title IX office on campus as a Deputy Title IX Coordinator involved with discrimination and harassment prevention.  She also is a co-chair of the department’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee and provides support to the diversity and inclusion initiatives created for the department.

Within the Big Ten, Blais serves on the Joint Group and Administrators Council and continues to be an active member within the conference serving on several subcommittees including the Sports Management Committee, Academics and Eligibility Committee and the Legislative Review Committee.  She has also served on the Budget Review Committee, Compliance and Reinstatement Subcommittee, and the Drug Testing Review Subcommittee.

In 2015 Blais was appointed to the NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee and served as chair of the committee in 2016-17 and 2017-18. In 2013, she was nominated by her peers and honored as the Women Leaders in College Sports (formerly NACWAA) Division I FBS Administrator of the Year, presented annually for significant contributions made in athletics administration.

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Andrea Crane

Andrea Crane is the Chief Operating Officer at Discover Health, a network of independent concierge medical practices which are focused on primary care. Discover Health is backed by Pacific Lake Partners, and Andrea is part of its Executive Leadership Program. Previously, she was part of Alpine Investors CEO-In-Training (“CIT”) program where she worked for two Alpine portfolio companies. Andrea was most recently CEO of e-Courier Software, a last-mile logistics SaaS company within the Alpine Software Group family. Prior to e-Courier, she was Director of Strategy & Business Development for YDesign Group, an online retailer of luxury lighting and future.

Andrea holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University, where she was a four-year member of the Varsity Soccer team. In her free time, Andrea enjoys skiing the mountains of Colorado and traveling around the world to places like Everest Base Camp and South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

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Dionna Latimer-Hearn

Dionna Latimer-Hearn is originally from Middletown, OH and received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders with a minor in French Studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Following the completion of her degree she worked for the French Embassy as an English Language Instructor in Montargis, France. She completed her Master of Arts Degree in Speech-Language Pathology at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She has served as a multilingual speech-language pathologist and educational consultant since 2002, holding positions in Illinois, Japan, Maryland and Texas. She currently works as an educational consultant and continuing education provider in support of a number of organizations in the US and abroad.

Dr. Latimer-Hearn received her Doctor of Philosophy Degree with distinction in Instructional Leadership for Changing Populations at Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore, MD. She is the inaugural recipient of the National Black Association for Speech-Language and Hearing (NBASLH) Clinician of the Year Award. Dr. Latimer-Hearn is also a recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Minority Dissertation Fellowship Award, the World Education Research Association (WERA) Innovative Poster Award and the CREATE Doctoral Scholarship. She has presented her research on African American English at more than a dozen conferences including: the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, World Education Research Association World Congress, and American Educational Research Association Conference. Dr. Latimer-Hearn is the author of the book Unexpected Places, and is the founder and director of REACT Initiative, a Christian nonprofit organization that promotes equity in education for historically marginalized populations. She is the founder and administrator of Respect the Dialect an online community promoting awareness and understanding of the African American English dialect. She is also the founder and host of The Culture We Speak, a podcast examining the intersection of culture, language, and education.

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Ava Thompson Greenwell

Ava Thompson Greenwell teaches reporting classes at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. In addition to her classroom duties, she has held several administrative posts, including associate dean for curriculum, director of the Teaching Television Program, co-curator for the nationally recognized Ida B. Wells award and director of the McCormick Tribune Fellows Program.  Currently, she serves as co-director of the South Africa Journalism Residency Program and as faculty mentor for the Posse Program.

The Chicago native is director/producer of Mandela in Chicago, a documentary film about the city’s anti-apartheid movement. She is also author of Ladies Leading: The Black Women Who Control Television News. Greenwell, an academic life coach, has been a freelance correspondent for WGN-TV and Chicago Tonight, a PBS news program. She also worked as a reporter at WFLA-TV in Tampa, FL; WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, MN; and WEHT-TV in Evansville, IN.

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Danielle Robinson Bell

Danielle Robinson Bell is an assistant professor and director of the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Professional master’s program. Bell’s area of expertise is strategic communications and its impact on business outcomes for organizations, brands and executives. She specializes in work that advances efforts related to culture, equity, inclusion, women, and BIPOC in the workplace.

Bell teaches strategic communications in the undergraduate and graduate integrated marketing communications programs. Her teaching philosophy can be captured in three words: beyond the classroom. Inspired by her own learning experiences, Bell draws from a variety of teaching materials including case studies, lectures, relevant media, current events and academic texts. She also serves on the Medill Academic Standards Committee and the Medill Curriculum Committee.

Bell spent more than 15 years on the agency side of advertising and branding creating integrated marketing campaigns for some of the world’s most recognized brands. Prior to joining Medill, she served as a trusted adviser to business leaders on matters related to crisis communications, reputation management, public relations and inclusive communications.