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Join UJA Professional Women for our virtual kickoff event that brings us together to discuss solutions for change now. Shelley Zalis, founder of The Female Quotient and a champion for gender equality, will moderate this panel discussion with leaders who are transforming workplace culture. After the panel, we’ll break into small groups to continue the conversation and to connect with new and familiar faces.
You'll also hear about UJA's continued relief efforts to address ongoing needs created by Covid-19.
Samantha (Sam) Saperstein leads the firm-wide Women on the Move program at JPMorgan Chase. In this role, Sam manages programs designed to fuel female ambition and ensure women have equal access and opportunity. Sam collaborates with teams across the bank and external partners on initiatives to support female business owners, educate female consumers, and empower female employees.
Prior to this role, Sam spent five years as chief marketing officer of Chase Commercial Banking, where she led the marketing, communications, and client experience functions. This included traditional and digital marketing efforts, media relations, employee communications, market research, and client satisfaction initiatives.
Sam joined the bank in 2012 as head of credit card strategy for Chase Consumer & Community Banking. Prior to joining Chase, Sam was group head of U.S. Core Products at MasterCard. She was responsible for the development and rollout of all U.S. credit, debit, commercial, and prepaid card programs, and the management of the U.S. loyalty platform.
Earlier in her career, Sam was a strategy consultant in the New York office of McKinsey & Company, where she served retail and wholesale banking clients. She also worked in journalism and spent several years covering the U.S. Treasury market and macroeconomics for Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s.
Sam serves on the Board of Safe Horizon, the nation’s largest victims’ services agency that supports victims of domestic violence, child abuse, human trafficking, and youth homelessness. She also is on the Board of Advisors for Catalyst.
Sam has a B.A. from Brown University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She resides in Westchester, New York, with her husband and three children.
As chief people officer, Lara Sweet is responsible for managing talent and supporting a strong company culture by overseeing recruiting, talent management, benefits and compensation, diversity and inclusion, council, and workplace services teams.
Lara also served as Snap’s interim chief financial officer from January 2019 to May 2019. She served as chief accounting officer from October 2017 till September 2019, responsible for leading the global accounting, financial reporting, shared service, and financial operations processes. Previous to that role, she served as Snap controller starting June 2016, joining Snap to build out the accounting function and prepare for the IPO.
From November 2014 to June 2016, Lara served as controller and chief accounting officer at AOL, Inc., and previously served as vice president, internal audit from April 2014 to November 2014, and vice president, assistant controller from August 2011 to April 2014.
Prior to her time at AOL, Lara led internal audit, accounting, and external reporting functions in the financial services, travel, and hospitality industries. She graduated from George Mason University in 1996 with a B.S. in accounting and is a licensed certified public accountant.
Shelley Zalis is an internationally renowned thought leader for advancing equality in the workplace and is the CEO of The Female Quotient. As the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25, she changed the game, helped elevate feminine values in the workplace, and has devoted herself to becoming a mentor and role model to women and leaders in her industry.
Today, through The Female Quotient, Zalis is advancing gender equality across industries and career levels. A firm believer in giving back with generosity, her legacy is to tap into the power of collaboration to transform workplace culture so that all people feel like they belong.
Zalis authors a Forbes column that provides advice for women in the “messy middle,” middle management, who are looking to rise up into leadership positions. She is co-founder of #SeeHer, a movement led by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) to increase the accurate portrayal of women and girls in advertising and media. She is on the Board of Directors for MAKERS.
Event Chairs
Rachel Sinensky, Samantha Yablon
Event Committee
Annette Krassner, Jessica Kravitz, Edie Margolis Savell
Professional Women
Chair, Cynthia Wolff
Vice Chairs, Marnie Black, Marge Magner, Jayme Meisel, Jamie Stern
UJA Women
Chair, Laurie Girsky