Jane DiRenzo Pigott
Managing Director, R3 Group LLC

“Effective Self-Promotion for Women Professionals”

Ms. Pigott is Managing Director of R3 Group LLC and specializes in providing leadership, change and diversity/inclusion consulting to organizations. Her services enhance an organization’s competitive edge by allowing the organization to more fully utilize, retain and promote its key human resource assets. She approaches leadership, change and inclusion strategically and produces measurable results towards her clients’ goals and objectives. Her clients include accounting and law firms, corporations and universities.

From 1993 until 2002, Ms. Pigott served as the Chair of the global Environmental Law practice at Winston & Strawn, one of the largest global law firms. Prior to that, Ms. Pigott was Chair of the Environmental Law Department at Katten, Muchin & Zavis. In those capacities, she provided creative solutions to expensive technical issues in an intensely regulated arena.

Additionally, she was instrumental in the creation and/or modification of the firm’s work place harassment and flexible hours policies. At Winston, she served as the Relationship Manager for the firm’s third largest client. In that role, she developed and implemented innovative strategic partnering that resulted in win-win financial solutions, thus becoming a role model for other firm/client relationships, and improving the client-service model on a firm-wide basis. She was a standing participant in all major client acquisition teams. Prior to being a partner at these large global law firms, she was employed by MidCon Corp., the natural gas transmission subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum. There she created strategies for managing significant litigation and core business risks.

At Winston & Strawn, Ms. Pigott served on the firm’s Executive Management Committee, the first woman to do so, and its Compensation Committee, the committees responsible for managing the firm’s 5,000 employees in its 6 global offices and establishing the compensation for all of the firm’s partners. While at Winston, Ms. Pigott created and chaired the firm’s Diversity Initiative, rendering the firm a leader among its peers and dramatically improving recruitment, retention and promotion of attorneys. Under Ms. Pigott’s leadership, the firm won three of the coveted Sager Awards for its Diversity Programs from the Minority Corporate Counsel Association. In addition, a number of outside organizations positively recognized Winston’s diversity efforts. For example, in the Chicago Lawyer and Minority Law Journal diversity surveys, Winston ranked in the top decile. Ms. Pigott was instrumental in helping Winston to be recognized in the June 2001 issue of Diversity & the Bar as one of five firms profiled in connection with best diversity practices, and in Vault’s 2001 “Guide to America’s Top 100 Law Firms” where Winston ranked second nationally in the “Best 20 Firms to Work For” category and was listed as No. 1 in the retention and office categories.

Ms. Pigott is an active leader in civic organizations. She currently serves as a Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Northwestern University. She is Chair of the Board of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She is a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of North Carolina and serves on the Advisory Board for its Law School’s Civil Rights Center. She serves on the Board of the Senior Business Women’s Forum and the Midwest AIDS Foundation. In addition, she is a member of The Chicago Network, an exclusive group of the most senior women in the Chicago area. She currently sits on the Network’s Census Committee, which publishes an annual survey of the women leaders in the top 50 Chicago publicly held corporations.

Ms. Pigott serves as an independent director of CitiStreet Funds, Inc., a mutual fund joint venture of CitiGroup and State Street Financial Advisors headquartered in East Brunswick, New Jersey. She has served as Chair of this Board’s Governance and Audit Committees. In addition, Ms. Pigott is an independent director and Chair of the Audit Committee of 3E Company, a private company based in San Diego, California, that provides outsourced environmental, health and safety services to its clients.

In 2000, Ms. Pigott received the Chicago Bar Association’s Alliance for Women Founder’s Award for excellence in the profession and her contributions to the advancement of women in the profession. She is the current co-Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Alliance for Women.

Ms. Pigott is an active speaker and author on management, diversity and substantive topics. She has spoken and presented papers at a wide variety of venues, including twice before the United Nations in conferences held in Paris, France. Her most recent speaking engagements include “Walking the Talk, Creating a Law Firm Environment Where Women Succeed” at the General Counsel and Managing Partners Leadership Summit sponsored by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession in New York City in May 2004; “Creating a Blue Print for Diversity Within Your Organization” and “Diversity Training For YOU and How to Make It Work For Your Organization” in April 2004 at the National Association for Law Placement, 2004 Annual Education Conference; and “Influencing Diversity in the Profession” at the Minority Corporate Counsel Association Third Annual CLE Expo in Chicago in May 2004. In May 2004, Ms. Pigott was the keynote speaker at the premier of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C. Her most recent workshops were “Effectively Communicating Across Differences” for the Legal Executives Forum, a group of Chief Litigation Counsels from Fortune 200 corporations, in May 2004; “The Art of Self Promotion for Female Professionals” for Deloitte & Touche’s Building Blocks for Success Series for its Women’s Initiative in May 2004; and, in January 2004, “Effective Self Promotion for Women Professionals” for the DuPont Women Lawyers Network. During the fall of 2004, she conducted self promotion workshops for Motorola’s Women’s Business Council and PricewaterhouseCoopers Women’s Circles. She actively participates in a number of formal mentoring programs for women and women of color.

Ms. Pigott received a BA from the University of Virginia and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Law School.

Ms. Piggot will be speaking about how women are socialized not to expect or demand the acknowledgement that accompanies the same type of success for men. Ineffective self promotion can damage your career; a lack of self promotion not only limits your career, it severely impacts your professional and personal satisfaction. This session provides specific self promotion strategies and tactics for women professionals that they can implement immediately in their professional lives.
Ms. Pigott can be reached at R3 Group LLC, One North LaSalle Street, Suite 1904, Chicago, Illinois 60602, phone: (312) 628-4743, fax: (312) 628-4745, e-mail: jdpigott@r3group.net.