Panel 1:

“Working with Lawyers,” will address the inevitable situation when business leaders work with attorneys and will focus on how managers can get the most of their relationships with their attorney. Topics will range from billing to using time efficiently to communication.

Mark McCareins, Senior Lecturer of Business Law, Kellogg School of Management,
Partner, Winston & Strawn

Mark McCareins’ trial practice concentrates on antitrust, trade regulation, intellectual property, and unfair competition. He has handled commercial litigation in over 40 federal district and appellate courts. Mr. McCareins received The President’s Volunteer Service Award from the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation in 2008. He is listed as a leading antitrust attorney by Chambers USA: Best Lawyers in America, 2005-2012, The Legal 500, and was selected by Leading Lawyers’ Network in both antitrust and commercial litigation for 2005-2011. He was also elected to Best Lawyers in America and Illinois Super Lawyers in antitrust litigation for 2005-2011, and was endorsed for antitrust in the 2012 PLC Competition and Cartel Leniency guide.

Mr. McCareins has dedicated himself to educating attorneys and business people through lecturing at Northwestern University’s business and law schools. He was nominated for the Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg in both 2009 and 2010. Mr. McCareins is also a senior lecturer of antitrust and business law at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and is an instructor with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA).

Henry Krasnow, Partner, Krasnow, Saunders, Cornblath LLP

Henry Krasnow is a Chicago lawyer who has specialized in providing strategies and solutions for the broad range legal problems of privately held businesses. He is the author of the book, “Your Lawyer: An Owner’s Manual”, which focuses on techniques for business owners to better understand and get more value from their lawyers. In addition, he has published numerous articles addressed to business owners which have appeared in publications such as Family Business Magazine, Crain’s Small Business, and Family Business Review. Henry has spoken to audiences of business owners and consultants nationally and is a frequent speaker for The Family Firm Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, a CPA, has taught in both the law school and the business school of IIT and has been honored by Best Lawyers in Chicago, Leading Lawyers Network, Best Lawyers in America, Top Lawyers in Illinois and The Family Firm Institute, of which he is a Fellow. He is the founder of the downtown law firm he started almost 20 years ago.

Roger Stelle, Member CEO & Co-Founder, Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle LLC

Roger Stelle is a founding member of Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle LLC, one of the largest suburban-based law firms in the Chicago metropolitan area with a professional staff in excess of thirty. The firm has offices in both Schaumburg and Chicago. Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle LLC is engaged in the representation of closely-held businesses and financial institutions with a particular expertise in mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Stelle’s practice is focused on the representation of closely-held companies, including succession issues and the pursuit of both growth and exit strategies for their principals. He was educated at Northwestern University where he received both his undergraduate and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees. He also holds a J.D. from the Indiana University of Law in Bloomington and a Master of Laws (LLM) from The John Marshall Law School. Mr. Stelle was a founding Director of the Midwest Business Brokers & Intermediaries Association (MBBI) and is a member of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG). He is also a member of the Chicago and Illinois State Bar Associations and has been admitted to practice in Indiana and Illinois. Mr. Stelle is a frequent speaker on issues affecting closely-held companies with a particular focus on acquisition opportunities and challenges in the current economic environment.

Andrew Cittadine, Co-founder, American BioOptics

Andrew is a successful chief executive and medical device entrepreneur with experience in multiple medical device companies. He is CEO of Diagnostic Photonics, a medical startup developing Computed Histology imaging that provides clinicians with detailed, live images of tissue structure, cancer, and lymph nodes during a procedure.

Previously, he co-founded and served as CEO for American BioOptics, a Northwestern medical device company using optical backscattering to screen for GI cancers. He led the company from formation through European and Canadian regulatory approval and a successful sale to a leading global medical device firm in 2010.

Andrew also co-founded and served as Vice President of Marketing for Sensant Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup providing diagnostic 3D ultrasound imaging for breast cancer which was acquired by Siemens in 2005. He also served as the startup CEO for SonarMed, helping to establish the venture-backed critical care company.

Andrew holds a BA in History from Stanford University, a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering also from Stanford, and an MBA with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Rohini Dey, Owner & Founder of Vermilion Restaurant

Rohini Dey’s career spans four phases. First, she taught in academia and has a master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India’s premier institute, and a doctorate in Management Science from the University of Texas. Second, she worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. where she managed projects in foreign investment policy and co-authored a book on infrastructure privatization. Third, at McKinsey & Co., Ms. Dey’s strategic management consulting project experience and knowledge development spanned a range of industries (primarily hi-tech and telecom) with a focus on growth and business building. Fourth, as an entrepreneur, Ms. Dey has combined her business credentials with her passion for food by establishing two urbane restaurants in Chicago and New York City.

Ms. Dey dreamt of and developed the Vermilion indian-latin concept and has executed each phase of its establishment and growth in Chicago and New York city across the gamut of entrepreneurial activities - raising finances, location, legalities, designing the interior, oversight of build, building her team, cuisine and menu/beverage program development, sourcing, marketing and the launch. As founder and owner, Ms. Dey oversees the operations and evolution of her two restaurants.  

Since inception, Vermilion has been acclaimed as “Best New Restaurant” by several publications. Ms. Dey was awarded the “Woman of Distinction” award by Children’s Hope and “Entrepreneur of the year – India” by the City of Chicago in 2010.

 Panel 2:

“Selling and Marketing in Cyberspace,” will be relevant to businesses which operate on the internet. These companies face a host of legal challenges and this panel will discuss the most pressing issues these companies face. Recent events such as Groupon Inc’s privacy and data-collection policies coming under congressional scrutiny, Craigslist being sued over personal service ads, Ebay being sued for facilitating the sale of knockoff merchandise and Match.com being sued for discrimination for not accepting profiles from certain minority groups highlight the developments in this area of commerce. Topics covered will also include copyright & trademark issues on a national level versus a regional level and legal requirements of email/spam marketing.

Esther Barron, Professor at Northwestern School of Law, Co-Founder of Elezar Handbags

Esther Barron is a Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the Director of the Entrepreneurship Law Center in the Bluhm Legal Clinic. Prior to joining Northwestern’s faculty, Ms. Barron practiced at Goldberg Kohn in Chicago in its commercial finance department, representing lenders and other financial institutions in middle market debt transactions. In 2004, she helped co-found a start-up handbag company Elezar, LLC, targeting high-end boutiques and department stores. Elezar bags are currently sold throughout the country. Ms. Barron graduated Cum Laude from Brandeis University and received her JD from Northwestern University School of Law.

Ross Kimbarovsky, Co-founder, crowdSpring

In 2007, Ross left a successful career as a trial lawyer to pursue his dream of founding a technology company (in part so that he could wear shorts and sandals to work every day) by co-founding crowdSPRING - the world's #1 marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, industrial design and copywriting services. Buyers who need a logo, website, custom graphic design, industrial design or written content post what they need, when they need it and how much they’ll pay. Once posted, creatives from around the world (108,000 from 200 countries) submit actual work. Buyers select from among actual work (an average of 110+ per project), not bids or proposals. crowdSPRING has helped tens of thousands of buyers from 100 countries (including entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses and the world's best Brands and agencies) meet their creative needs.

Prior to crowdSPRING, for 13 years, Ross counseled and represented clients (from small internet startups to Fortune 100 companies) in complex disputes involving intellectual property in United States state and federal courts and before the World Intellectual Property Organization. In 2006, Ross was named one of “40 Illinois Attorneys Under Forty to Watch” for intellectual property and complex commercial litigation.

Gina Durham, Partner, DLA Piper

Gina Durham's practice focuses on enforcement and portfolio management in domestic and foreign intellectual property matters.

Ms. Durham has led brand protection efforts for some of the most well-known companies in the world, from trying one of the first cases to go to trial under the amended Federal Trademark Dilution Act, to successfully pursuing multiple lawsuits against spammers infringing on the famous brand of a Fortune 500 company. During her time at DLA Piper, Ms. Durham spent an extended amount of time working "on loan" within a major software corporation advising on matters related to large scale anti-counterfeiting efforts and license compliance.

Ms. Durham has unique experience in connection with the protection of proprietary rights on the internet, having successfully litigated the enforceability of online terms of use, civil claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, state anti-spam laws and domestic and foreign domain name disputes. She is also a founding member of DLA Piper's Social Media practice and counsels regularly on mitigating risks associated with user-generated content through a combination of well-crafted terms of use, privacy policies and compliance for purposes of Communications Decency Act immunity and Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor.

Gregg Kirchhoefer, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Mr. Kirchhoefer's practice is focused on transactional and counseling matters primarily involving computer, telecommunications, biotechnology, other technology and intellectual property, corporate and commercial issues. Mr. Kirchhoefer is responsible for the Firm's intellectual property/technology transactions practice group in Chicago.

Recently, Mr. Kirchhoefer was listed in The Best Lawyers in America 2010 edition in the areas of Information Technology Law and Technology Law. He is one of fewer than 100 lawyers in the U.S. to be selected for Who's Who of Internet and E-Commerce Lawyers, and is listed in the publications Who's Who Legal: The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers; Leading Illinois Attorneys; Chambers USA, America's Leading Lawyers for Business, 2003-2011; and Chambers Global, The World's Leading Lawyers for Business 2006-2010. Mr. Kirchhoefer has been recognized as "a superior legal counsel'' in the Legal 500 US 2011 in the category of Outsourcing. In 2010, Mr. Kirchhoefer was named as one of the world's 250 leading patent and technology licensing lawyers by Intellectual Asset Management magazine. He has been called a "standout in the market and a prolific dealmaker."                                               

Mr. Kirchhoefer is dedicated to educating attorneys and business people on both sides of transactions about outsourcing. He is a frequent presenter at seminars, author of numerous articles, and often quoted in industry publications and has lectured at several top business and law schools and contracting sessions of IAOP’s Certified Outsourcing Professionals course for IAOP. He is also a Certified Outsourcing Professional. Mr. Kirchhoefer has been an adjunct professor at a local law school where he taught computer law classes in the J.J. and LL.M. programs. He is also the co-chair of the Legal and Compliance Chapter of IAOP. Mr. Kirchhoefer recently co-authored “Outsourcing, Modularity, and the Theory of the Firm” for BYU Law Review 2011.

Desiree Vargas-Wrigley, CEO & Co-Founder, GiveForward

Desiree’s interest in strategic philanthropy and social ventures was borne out of her work funding entrepre-neurship programs at the Kauffman Foundation. But it was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that inspired the vision for GiveForward. While talking with colleagues, Desiree wondered if there was a better way for small-scale donors to contribute directly to families rebuilding. After some investigation, she realized that no online tools existed to raise money without being a registered 501(c)3 organization. In the fall of 2007, Desiree developed the initial concept for GiveForward, as a fundraising platform for anyone wanting to raise money for anything. But her big break came in the start of 2008, when a friend introduced her to Ethan Austin, who was looking to start a fundraising site for marathon runners. The two hit it off and launched the first version of GiveForward in August of 2008. Now after years of hard work and a few leaps of faith, GiveForward has helped thousands of people raise millions of dollars for loved ones during times of need.

Born in Costa Rica, Desiree was raised in a suburb of Kansas City, MO. She graduated from Yale with a B.A. in Latin American studies in 2004 and quickly went to work as a specialist in college entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. When she’s not working, Desiree can be found spending time with her husband & step-daughter, inventing recipes that don’t always work, or busting a move in zumba or hip hop classes.