W.I.N. Career Panel

On Tuesday, February 27, 2024, the Harlem Lacrosse Women’s Impact Network (WIN) hosted its inaugural Virtual Career Panel and welcomed students, alumni, panelists, and HL staff from across the country into an inspiring, collaborative, and productive space.

This event successfully created a vibrant forum for networking, mentorship, and empowerment. The diverse panel featured speakers representing over a dozen fields and illustrated the landscape of professional opportunities that our young women could pursue.

Panelists emphasized the importance of lifelong learning, resilience in the face of failure, how sport has influenced their professional journeys, and the power of community support in achieving professional success. Interactive Q&A sessions allowed attendees to seek advice tailored to their individual aspirations and questions.

This event was more than an opportunity to hear about different careers and network; it was a celebration of our students’ and alumni's potential and a commitment to nurturing the next generation of female leaders. Attendees left the session with valuable insights, newfound mentors, and the inspiration to pursue their career goals with confidence and ambition. WIN continues to be a pivotal platform for Harlem Lacrosse, proving that when women support each other, incredible growth is possible, both on and off the field.

  • The Women’s Impact Network (W.I.N.) addresses systemic and programmatic challenges, provides intentional opportunities for networking and mentorship and raises funds in support of the girls of Harlem Lacrosse.

    OUR COMMUNITY

    We are an inclusive network of thought leaders that represents a cross-section of professional experiences and backgrounds. We work in synergy to cultivate the academic, professional, and personal development of the girls of Harlem Lacrosse.

    OUR GOAL

    Building an impactful community of women is our top priority. We work to break down barriers of inequity while providing the girls of Harlem Lacrosse resources and pathways for fulfilling advancement.

    OUR COMMITMENT

    We aim to connect the girls of Harlem Lacrosse with inspiring role models who can open doors to opportunity, provide insight into educational and career paths, and support them on their journey to success.

Featured Speaker: Nada Nicholas

Nada Nicholas is currently the President and CEO of Advanced Benefits Management.

Prior to her current role, Nada served as the Senior Vice President of Business Development at EmpiRx Health, the industry’s only value-based PBM where she lead new business, marketing, and client relations.

Nada previously served as the Head of People of Culture at the experiential events agency, Crown and Conquer, where she oversaw the strategy and operations of the entertainment startup.

Majority of Nada’s career she worked in organized labor and politics including serving as the Director of Organizing at the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, and as the Program Representative at the New York Nurses Association in the Economic and General Welfare Program.

Nada received her Bachelor of Science in Communications from Virgina Commonwealth and a Master of Jurisprudence in Health Law from Seton Hall Law School. Nada is very passionate about leadership development and has served as a mentor for the AFSCME Women’s Leadership Academy and as the Chair of the US Department of Labor’s Apprenticeship Training Program. 

She resides in Philadelphia, PA

MEet Our Panelists

As New Balance’s Global Director of International Marketing, Romina leads the deployment of the Global Game Plan’s brand and category campaigns working with teams in the APAC, EMEA, China, Japan and LATAM regions. 

Formerly the brand’s Global Director of Communications & Entertainment, Romina led public relations, social media and entertainment strategies that earned greater share of voice and consumer acquisition for New Balance via storytelling grounded in innovation, craftmanship, style, and purpose. 

Before joining the New Balance brand, Romina held various leadership positions, including Group Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, where she oversaw global communications for Toyota including the automobile and mobility company’s Olympics & Paralympics campaign, “Start Your Impossible,” and the U.S. programs for “Let’s Go Places.” 

Romina Bongiovanni

Darby Fox is a child and adolescent family therapist with over 25 years of experience with children and families from diverse backgrounds. Darby’s first book, Rethinking Your Teenager: Shifting from Conflict and Control to Structure and Nurture to Raise Accountable Young Adults, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. An expert on parenting and family topics, she has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and Newsmax and is a monthly contributor to Psychology Today. Darby serves as a pro bono mental health consultant on the boards of both Brunswick School and the American Red Cross and has worked with at-risk children through Horizons and the Open Door Homeless Shelter. She received a BA from Middlebury College and an MSW in Clinical Family Practice from Columbia University and has pursued specialized training at several leading institutions including Yale’s Child Study Center, NYU’s Silver School of Social Work, Harvard Medical School, the Anna Freud Centre, and The Ackerman Institute for the Family. Darby has four children of her own.

Darby Fox

Layla Lisiewski was raised in Connecticut and grew up with a dad who made it his life’s work to help people. She knew at a very young age she wanted to follow in his footsteps. Layla went on to study International Relations and play Division I lacrosse at Brown University. Layla worked in private wealth management at Merrill Lynch & Co. in Manhattan for seven years before becoming a mother and creating the Local Moms Network, a national digital platform providing parents with comprehensive collections of resources and opportunities for connection in 100+ locations across the country. She is an entrepreneur who bootstrapped a company from $0 with 100% year-over-year growth in revenue and built a team of over 100 women and a few men. She and her husband Gary live in Connecticut with their four children (Ella 11, Michael 9, Alexandra 6, Luke 3).

Layla Lisiewski

A 2008 US Lacrosse National Hall of Fame inductee, Chris Sailer concluded her 36th and final year at the helm of the Princeton women’s lacrosse program in June of 2022.

She guided the team to three NCAA championships, 11 national semifinal appearances, 27 NCAA tournament appearances and 16 Ivy League titles.

She retired as the fifth-winningest coach all-time in women's lacrosse with 433 wins, and she is the all-time leader in wins by a head coach at one Division I program.

Sailer’s involvement in the sport of women’s lacrosse doesn’t end with coaching. Throughout her career she was actively involved in stimulating the growth of the sport. She is a former chair of the Tewaaraton Trophy selection committee, a former member of the NCAA Women’s Lacrosse Committee, former president, treasurer and board member of the IWLCA and former member of the US Lacrosse Women’s Division Board of Governors. Sailer currently sits on the board of directors of Harlem Lacrosse, and works as a recruiting consultant with BBL club.  Her heavy involvement in the sport earned her the 2008 Diane Geppi-Aikens Memorial Award, presented by the IWLCA for lifetime achievement in contribution to women’s lacrosse.

Chris Sailer

Heather Waters Borthwick is a partner at DLA Piper. Heather’s experience includes advising leading financial institutions, commercial and investment banks, direct lenders, private equity firms and corporate borrowers on a broad range of financing matters. These include syndicated and direct lending leveraged acquisition financings (both domestic and cross-border), asset-based financings and investment grade lending transactions, debtor in possession financings and exit financings.  

Prior to her current role, Heather was a partner at White & Case LLP and she also previously served as assistant general counsel for an international media corporation.

Heather Waters Borthwick

Alicia Garcia grew up in Los Angeles County and graduated from UC Irvine with a B.A. in Political Science. She was a four-year member of the club lacrosse team, a three-year captain, and served two years as President for the team. She also spent three years coaching lacrosse at Corona Del Mar High School in Newport Beach, CA. While in college, she taught her own course at UCI to first-generation/underserved students and lobbied for education bills in Sacramento, CA and Washington, D.C. Alicia joined Harlem Lacrosse in Fall 2018 as the Girl’s Program Director at ICEF View Park Middle School. In 2022, Alicia became the Managing Director of Harlem Lacrosse - Los Angeles.

Alicia Garcia

Kristin Noto is the author of Live E.P.I.C. Excellence Personified In Character: Embracing 7 Everyday Virtues to Increase Happiness and Personal Success. Her “Live E.P.I.C.” Principle is a fresh spin on the ageless wisdom of growing in everyday virtues as means to cultivate personal character, transforming an ordinary life into an extraordinary life. 

Over the past thirty years, Kristin has been a “career mom” raising five children. She sought after secrets of success and realized, similar to the way a corporation establishes core values, she needed to establish a system of morals and values to raise her children. Kristin became immersed in the “business” of building personal character in herself and her children. Her area of expertise is an everyday approach in developing personal character for a lifetime of happiness and personal success.

Kristin Noto

Dr. Lyne Scott is a Professor of Pediatrics (USC Keck School of Medicine), Allergy and Immunology Division Chief, Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Training Program Director, and Director of the Breathmobile Program at LA General.  Dr. Scott has extensive knowledge regarding the infrastructure of the Breathmobile Program, implementation of disease management principles in asthma disease tracking, and outcomes results for the Breathmobile Program. Dr. Scott has participated in several peer-reviewed publications describing findings of the LA General Breathmobile Program and is the lead author on a collaborative manuscript describing outcomes for Breathmobile Programs across the country. She has received funding from National Institutes of Health for health disparities research. Her interests include improving access to effective asthma care for children in Los Angeles. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Violence Intervention Program and ServingUnderserved, INC.

Dr. Lyne Scott

Hannah Burgess is a graduate of Yale University with a B.S. in Cognitive Science with a focus on machine learning. Also, I was a member of the Women’s Lacrosse Team! She is a Chicago native but has been living in NYC since 2020 where she started her first job on Wall Street. She spent two years at Goldman Sachs in their analyst program working as a US Equities Sales Trader, covering both asset managers and hedge funds. In 2022, Hannah transitioned to her current role on the Institutional Sales team at Galaxy where she covers traditional and crypto native institutions on all digital asset trading needs (Spot/Derivatives/Lending/etc). Outside of work, she lives with her boyfriend on the Upper West Side – She is still super into exercising, having run both the NYC and Boston Marathon. But, she also has the biggest sweet tooth and has picked up making homemade ice cream as her hobby (Hannah has made 20+ flavors and DOES TAKE REQUESTS!)

Hannah Burgess

Kerry Hanson began her interior design career in San Francisco. She studied Interior Design and Interior Architecture at U.C. Berkeley and worked under Edward Lobrano. Kerry's development was strongly influenced by Lobrano, whose impeccable taste and incredible attention to detail, heavily influenced her approach to design. Kerry started her own firm, Kerry Hanson Design, in 2004. Kerry graduated from Hamilton College. She lives in New Canaan, CT, with her husband and their four daughters.

Kerry Hanson

Vivian Quaye is a Director, Public Funds & Taft Hartley plans at Northern Trust Asset Management. She has more than 14 years of financial industry experience including experience in marketing Equity, Fixed Income, Multi Asset Strategies and Solutions to Institutional businesses. Most recently, she spent six years at Schroders where she was Director of Relationship Management, responsible for coverage of various client types with a primary focus of Taft-Hartley sales and client relationships. Prior to Schroders, Vivian worked at Voya Investment Management where she held various roles in Institutional Distribution. Vivian earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Denison University and a master’s degree in investor relations from Fordham University. She currently serves on the board of Denison University.

Vivian Quaye

Courtney Weisse (New York) graduated from Dartmouth College in 2017 with a B.A. in Psychology. Courtney was a 4-year starter on the Dartmouth Women’s Lacrosse team where she was named to the All-Ivy League First Team, was the Don '35 and Margaret Radasch Award Winner —presented to the player who exemplifies extraordinary dedication, true coachability and an unselfish attitude throughout the season. After graduation Courtney started her career in New York City working at an expert network, Third Bridge, where she managed a team of researchers as well as lead project teams working with private equity firms to assist with due diligence, portfolio research and deal sourcing/screening. Courtney joined KKR in 2021 and is a member of the Global Client Solutions group (formerly known as the Client and Partner Group) where she supports product origination, management, and fundraising efforts across private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and credit.

Courtney Weisse

Lisa Caputo is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience Officer at The Travelers Companies, Inc., a component of the Dow 30. Lisa oversees the company’s marketing, digital, advertising, media, customer and agent experience and service, corporate communications, market research, customer and agent insights, branding, creative services, sponsorships, customer relationship management (CRM), and analytics, and works closely with government affairs and investor relations. She is a member of the Travelers Foundation Board, the Travelers Innovation Council, and the Travelers Executive Diversity & Inclusion Council. As a prominent advocate for women, Lisa developed the company’s SHE Travels initiative, a program to promote and develop women in the insurance industry. She also founded SHE Rises, an internal professional business group committed to helping women achieve their career goals with the support of allies, sponsors, and mentors, and has served as the Executive Sponsor of the company’s Women’s Diversity Network.

Lisa Caputo

The 2023-24 season will mark Ashley Lawrence's first season as the inaugural Head Coach of the Virginia State University Women's Lacrosse team in 2023. The Trojans Athletic Department previously announced the addition of women's lacrosse as an official university-sponsored sport in 2022.

Prior to her arrival at VSU, she lived in her hometown Syracuse, New York and was the Head Coach for the Girls JV Lacrosse Program within the Syracuse City School District. Lawrence worked closely with the Valley Youth Lacrosse program in Syracuse.
 
She played college lacrosse at Howard University from 2007 to 2011. She was named team captain from 2008-2011 and was also named Rookie of the Year in 2008. She earned the Bison Leadership Award as well as the Athletic Academic Award in 2011.
 
Lawrence graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Human, Health, and Performance Leisure Studies from Howard and got her Master’s in Higher Education from Purdue Global University.

Ashley Lawrence

Sherry Ramsay graduated from the University of Virginia in 1990 with a degree in Communications from the College of Arts & Sciences. She spent her first two years out of college teaching US History and serving as the Head Field Hockey and Lacrosse Coach at the Gunnery School in Washington, CT. She went on to work in the Human Resources field at Grey Advertising and then joined Impact Recruiting New York City, where she spent nine years as a Job Recruiter.  Since 2001 she and her husband have lived in Darien, CT where she has been a powerful community volunteer and activist, “Super-Mom” and “Domestic Engineer Extraordinaire”, splitting her time between coaching, volunteering, and raising her three children: Katie, former Captain of the USC Women’s Lacrosse Team: Maggie, current player on the USC Lacrosse Team and Jack. a current student at the University of Virginia. Sherry has been the Varsity Field Hockey Coach at Darien High School since 2013 and currently serves on two boards, the UVA College Foundation and Harlem Lacrosse New York.

Sherry Ramsay

Melanie Zaraska is an investment associate at Apollo Global Management on the Real Estate Credit team. Melanie has been at Apollo for over two years and focuses on real estate investment opportunities across the United States across all property types including residential apartments, offices, film studios, shopping centers and hotels. Prior to Apollo, Melanie worked at a small real estate investment trust (REIT) as an investment analyst.

 Melanie received a bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in french at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Melanie was on the D1 varsity swim team where until recently, she was the team record holder in the 400-yard individual medley.

Melanie Zaraska