Elizabeth Howard Crowell is a partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP where she leads the Banking Practice Group. Ms. Crowell has been very actively involved in firm service throughout her career, and, in addition to chairing the Banking Practice Group at Gardere for the past thirteen years, she chairs the Asset Securitization Specialty Practice Group and the Financial Reform Law Committee. During her tenure at Gardere Ms. Crowell also has chaired the Business Development Committee and the Partner Compensation Committee. Ms. Crowell currently serves as a member of the Business Development Committee and the Diversity Committee; she has also served as a member of the firm’s Management Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee.

Ms. Crowell’s thirty-two year career has spanned the corporate securities and corporate finance practice areas with focuses on privately placed investments, public and private securities offerings, bond and commercial loan transactions, debt restructurings and workouts and domestic and international asset-backed transactions. For over twenty years the primary emphasis of Ms. Crowell’s practice has been on structured finance transactions in the debt and equity markets, with a special emphasis on representing corporate trustees, custodians and portfolio administrators.

Ms. Crowell has extensive experience representing corporate trustees in asset securitizations, including collateralized debt obligations, collateralized loan obligations, credit-risk and equity-linked derivatives products, debt repackagings, equity index funds, foreign debt securitizations, receivables financings and trust preferred notes. Ms. Crowell has a national reputation in the area of corporate trust, custodial, administrative agency and portfolio administration representation. In many of her recent engagements Ms. Crowell has handled redemptions, indenture amendment and compliance issues, trustee successorships, exchange offers, consent solicitations, restructurings and default administration matters. Ms. Crowell is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Structured Finance Law and has earned an AV Preeminent Rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Attorney Directory.

In addition to Ms. Crowell’s productive law practice, she has worked tirelessly in the Houston non-profit community. Ms. Crowell is a current Trustee and Executive Committee member and the past Board President of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. She is also a Director and Executive Committee member of Inprint, Inc. Ms. Crowell has been an active member of the Rice University Humanities Advisory Board since its inception, and for many years she has been a member of the Rice Design Alliance, the Rice University Friends of Fondren Library, and the Shepherd School of Rice University. Ms. Crowell is a Sustaining Member of The Junior League of Houston, Inc. and is a Past Director of the United Cerebral Palsy of Texas and the University of Houston Law Alumni Board. On behalf of Gardere, Ms. Crowell has served as Team Captain of the MS 150 Annual Bike Tour, and she currently chairs the “A Night Out” Event for Dress for Success Houston.

Ms. Crowell received her B.A. from Rice University and her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. While at Rice Ms. Crowell was active in the French Honor Society. During law school she served as Articles Research Editor for the Houston Law Review. Ms. Crowell’s husband, Steven Crowell, chairs the Philosophy Department at Rice University, and each of her two sons is married and attending law school.

Joyce D. Slocum is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of NPR, a media organization creating and distributing award-winning news, information, and music programming to 27.2 million listeners every week through a network of 900 independent stations.

As a key member of NPR’s Executive Committee, which establishes the company’s strategic plan and policies, Ms. Slocum advises on and is engaged in matters including financing, legislative, regulatory, tax, real estate, contract, intellectual property, labor and employment, philanthropic, communications, and First Amendment issues.

Additionally, Ms. Slocum serves as the Secretary of the NPR Board of Directors, managing all Board activities and providing counsel on governance, endowment, personnel and other sensitive matters. She is also an advisor to the NPR Foundation Board of Trustees and acts as NPR’s Chief Ethics Officer.

Ms. Slocum, who joined the company in 2008, is an integral part of NPR’s leadership team. During the height of the economic crisis, she guided a joint legal/human resources team through the difficult task of executing the first major layoff in NPR’s history, bargained with the two unions representing NPR employees for concessions necessary to avoid further staff reductions, and aided the NPR Board and NPR Foundation Board of Trustees in determining the distribution to be made to NPR in light of the decline in value of its endowment.

With an improved economy in 2010, Ms. Slocum led the teams responsible for NPR’s offering of $162,125,000 of tax-exempt municipal bonds and successfully negotiating new collective bargaining agreements with both unions. She has also worked closely with the NPR Board to improve the Board’s processes and has invigorated her own department’s functions through strategic hiring, use of technology, and a culture of excellence and service.

Prior to joining NPR, Ms. Slocum was Executive Vice President, Global Legal and Business Affairs, and General Counsel for HIT Entertainment, a producer and distributor of quality children’s entertainment products. Over 14 years, Ms. Slocum was a constant in top management as the company evolved through a variety of management structures, beginning with her establishing the first in-house legal department for Lyrick Corporation in 1994.

Ms. Slocum served as a key negotiator for Lyrick in its merger with HIT Entertainment PLC, and later in HIT’s negotiations for the acquisition of Gullane Entertainment PLC. Following the 2005 acquisition of HIT by Apax Partners, Ms. Slocum was named company secretary for the primary holding company and all US subsidiaries.

In addition to her mergers and acquisitions work while at HIT, Ms. Slocum championed the concept of a cable channel dedicated to quality pre-school children’s programming and served a pivotal role in bringing together the unique partnership of HIT, Comcast, Sesame Workshop and PBS to form the PBS Kids Sprout channel, now available in over 50 million households.

Contributing as both a legal and business advisor during her 10 years at 7-Eleven, Inc., Ms. Slocum served as an international licensing and franchising attorney, and also participated on a CEO-appointed special taskforce which conducted a comprehensive review of and made recommendations for improving operations of inner-city stores, advised and prepared communications for the CEO and COO regarding licensing and franchising matters; and acted as a liaison between senior executives and franchisees, government officials, community groups and media.

Ms. Slocum’s community involvement includes serving as a USA Film Festival board member and two-term board chair; assisting the Texas Motion Picture Alliance in successfully lobbying the Texas Legislature for funding production incentives; and taking a lead role as an officer and board member of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition Foundation, including helping to draft and obtain passage by a number of states of a model trademark anti-counterfeiting bill.

Ann M. Cresce is General Counsel, Head of Compliance and Corporate Secretary at the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, a global electronic marketplace connecting commodities end-users, hedgers and investors in China with the rest of the world. There, she manages and directs all legal and corporate affairs at the Hong Kong-headquartered commodity exchange.

As a member of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange’s Senior Management Executive Committee, she plays an instrumental role in determining the exchange’s strategic direction, and corporate initiatives and activities. Ms. Cresce is responsible for the exchange’s legal and regulatory filings with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission including all filings necessary for regulatory authorization of the new exchange. She presents the exchange’s position on relevant topics with the Hong Kong government and other regulatory authorities, deals with all other legal and compliance aspects from corporate governance to managing intellectual property and advises the Board of Directors, which includes prominent Chinese representation.

Prior to joining the exchange, Ms. Cresce accumulated experience across three major U.S. futures exchanges, as well as serving stints at the U.S. futures regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and trading firms. This included serving as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the Chicago Climate Exchange from 2003 to 2009, where she directed and coordinated the establishment and launch of a new futures market in greenhouse gases, and as Director of Compliance and Assistant General Counsel for the IntercontinentalExchange between 2002 and 2003. Ms. Cresce was also on the demutualization and IPO teams at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the early 2000s, where she served as Corporate Secretary and Director of Shareholder Relations, transitioning the exchange to a publicly held company. In these positions and those at trading firms, she gained considerable experience in: liaising with and advising boards and board committees; managing the legal aspects of corporate funding and capital raising events; directing the handling of internal and trading compliance programs and matters; and working with domestic and international legal and regulatory schemes and negotiating agreements in Asia, the U.K. and the E.U.

At the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, she was primarily responsible for overseeing exchange regulatory programs and trading activity, as well as evaluating exchange rule submissions. She also served as Director of the Office of Investigations (Investigations and Market Surveillance) at the Chicago Board of Trade between 1987 and 1991, managing the full gamut of regulatory functions from prosecution, settlement negotiations and interpreting market rules.

Ms. Cresce received her J.D. from the Chicago-Kent College of Law and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance. She has been a member of the Futures Industry Association’s Law and Compliance Division, as well as a member of the American Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association and the Hong Kong Corporate Counsel Association. She is also appointed to the Business Advisory Council for the Center for International Business Education and Research at the University of Illinois.

Ms. Cresce is an avid public speaker who is frequently called upon to share her insights at high-profile corporate round tables and panel discussions, and she has spoken on issues ranging from trends in the futures and derivatives industry and international regulation to current developments in environmental and intellectual property law.

Sherry F. Bellamy is of Counsel with the law firm of Leftwich & Ludaway LLC, and Vice President of L&L Consulting LLC, a division of the firm that specializes in management consulting, executive coaching and diversity consulting.

Ms. Bellamy retired as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Verizon Business in December 2009. In that role she was responsible for overseeing litigation and regulatory matters for Verizon’s enterprise and government sales division. During the course of her 19-year career with Verizon, her leadership and legal acumen were critical to winning federal and state approvals of Verizon’s three foundational mergers—NYNEX/Bell Atlantic, Bell Atlantic/GTE and Verizon/MCI.

Ms. Bellamy served in a variety of roles with increasing responsibility with Verizon and its predecessor companies. Following the merger between Bell Atlantic and GTE, she served as Vice President and Associate General Counsel, overseeing the state general counsels in Verizon’s New England, New York and Mid-Atlantic companies. When Bell Atlantic and NYNEX merged, Ms. Bellamy was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Bell Atlantic-Maryland. Early in her career with the company, she served as Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for C&P Telephone, the Washington, D.C. operating subsidiary.

Before joining Bell Atlantic, Ms. Bellamy held positions with the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue in Washington, D.C. and with the Washington, D.C. and New York offices of Chadbourne & Parke. Early in her career, she served as staff attorney with the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, establishing a civil litigation section for the representation of children.

Ms. Bellamy has served on numerous economic development and philanthropic boards, and has been recognized for her leadership and community service contributions. She currently serves as a director for Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Atlas Performing Arts Center and Cardinal Spellman High School (N.Y.). Prior board service includes the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College, and positions as director and member of the Executive Committee of the Maryland Economic Development Commission, the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Greater Baltimore Alliance and the Maryland State Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. Bellamy’s awards and honors include an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Rosemont College, recognition by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession for her contributions to advancing the cause of diversity in the legal profession, being named as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women, Baltimore Magazine’s Top Women in Business and Washingtonian Magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Washington. Ms. Bellamy has been profiled in two books, Women of Courage II and Notable Black American Women III, as well as in numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

Ms. Bellamy holds a Juris Doctor from the Yale Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Swarthmore College.

Abigail Arms is a partner in Shearman & Sterling LLP’s Washington, D.C. office and one of the leaders of the firm’s Capital Markets, Corporate Governance and Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory practice groups. She has considerable experience in U.S. securities laws, and is widely sought after for her counsel on the subject. During her three-decade career, Ms. Arms’ impact on U.S. securities laws has been significant.

At Shearman & Sterling, Ms. Arms advises corporate and investment banking clients and other Shearman & Sterling attorneys on a wide range of U.S. securities laws, governance and capital markets matters. During the recent financial crisis, Ms. Arms advised clients and other firm attorneys on various legal and structuring issues and participated in cutting-edge securities offerings, including a novel equity financing transaction by a financial institution that was recognized as a 2010 Deal of the Year by The Banker magazine.

Ms. Arms is an active leader, at times behind the scenes, at Shearman & Sterling. A member of the firm’s Corporate Governance Group, she participates in Shearman & Sterling’s annual Corporate Governance Symposiums, including the one held most recently in October 2010. Ms. Arms is a firm supporter of inclusiveness and diversity. She is a member of the firm’s Diversity Committee. She also is a strong supporter of the firm’s Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention affinity group, known as WISER, which, among other goals, strives to enhance Shearman & Sterling’s commitment to hiring, retaining, developing and promoting women attorneys at the firm. She also is a senior member of the firm’s Opinion Committee. Finally, Ms. Arms is a critical member of the firm’s knowledge management group and a key “go-to” resource for other firm attorneys.

Ms. Arms is widely recognized in the legal community, most recently having been named in The International Who’s Who of Capital Markets Lawyers 2010 and Washington DC’s Best Lawyers 2011 Edition.

Prior to joining Shearman & Sterling in 1998, Ms. Arms served in a variety of key senior positions in the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Senior Associate Director of the Division of Corporate Finance. While at the SEC, she managed the disclosure and review program administered by the Division with respect to capital-raising transactions, including offerings of asset-backed securities and derivative instruments, and periodic reporting by over 11,000 publicly-traded companies. From 1992 to 1996, Ms. Arms served as Associate Director – Legal, the principal legal officer of the Division, where she managed the Offices of Chief Counsel and Mergers and Acquisitions. During her time at the SEC, Ms. Arms also participated in a number of Division initiatives to streamline the capital-raising regulatory framework, including the elimination of pricing amendments, universal shelf and Rule 144A. Ms. Arms was a member of former Chairman Levitt’s Disclosure Simplification Task Force, which published its report in March 1996, and in 1992 served as the Commission’s securities adviser to the Hungarian securities regulators. While at the SEC, Ms. Arms received the 1991 Capital Markets Award and in 1996 received the Disclosure Simplification Award.

Ms. Arms is a frequent public speaker for the Practising Law Institute and conferences sponsored by other organizations, including InvestoRegulation and LegalWorks. For the past five years Ms. Arms, as program chair, has led the renowned Practising Law Institute’s three-city program on SEC annual reporting requirements. Ms. Arms also has published two chapters, “US-Registered Offers” and “Continuing Obligations and Financial Information: Accounting and Disclosure,” in SEC Regulation Outside the United States, edited by Mark Berman (Sixth Edition, 2007).

In addition to her J.D., Ms. Arms has a master’s degree in Economics, and, prior to going to law school, spent several years as a corporate lending officer with an international bank. Since 2007 she has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization unaffiliated with the SEC, has served on the Board’s Nominating and Audit Committees and since June 1, 2009 as chair of the Audit Committee.

DeLisa Alexander, Senior Vice President, People and Brand, leads Red Hat’s people and brand efforts, including global human resources, Red Hat University, and the corporate brand team. The organization’s mission is to be a strategic partner to the business in acquiring, developing and retaining talent and to enhance the Red Hat culture and brand. In 2009, Triangle Business Journal named Red Hat one of the Best Places to Work in the North Carolina Triangle. Ms. Alexander serves on the Board of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the NC State Management College Diversity Board and the Advisory Board of the Raleigh Junior League. In 2010, Ms. Alexander received a “Women in Business” executive award from the Triangle Business Journal.

Ms. Alexander joined Red Hat in 2001 and served in the office of General Counsel until mid-2006, most recently as Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary. During this time, Alexander was responsible for, among other items, equity and executive compensation, trademark, copyright and employment matters. Ms. Alexander also advised the company’s management and board of directors on securities and corporate governance.

Prior to joining Red Hat, Ms. Alexander was associated with the law firm Kilpatrick Stockton where she focused on mergers, acquisitions, venture capital and intellectual property licensing. She started her career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable William B. Chandler, Chancellor of the renowned Delaware Court of Chancery. Alexander graduated magna cum laude with a B.B.A. from James Madison University, holds an M.B.A. from University of Baltimore and earned her Juris Doctor, with distinction, from George Mason University.

Mary Kate Wold is a finance and operating executive, public company director and former Wall Street law firm partner. She has an established record of leading and repositioning organizations to excel.

Ms. Wold was Senior Vice President – Finance and a Principal Corporate Officer of Wyeth, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, until its merger with Pfizer in late 2009. In that role, she led each of the Treasury, Tax and Procurement organizations through major performance-enhancing transformations. Ms. Wold designed and implemented Wyeth’s corporate-wide enterprise risk management system, delivering centralized transparency of cross-functional risk. She drove the redesign of Wyeth’s global business process outsourcing initiative, which eliminated significant obstacles to operational efficiency throughout the company.

As a member of numerous executive oversight committees, Ms. Wold provided direction across a spectrum of Wyeth’s business and finance operations—from financial reporting and disclosure to investor relations to supply chain management. She was a frequent speaker at professional and industry events, including as the principal Wyeth presenter at leading healthcare equity investor conferences.

Prior to joining Wyeth, Ms. Wold was a partner and chaired the tax practice group of one of the world’s largest law firms, Shearman & Sterling, leading an aggressive global expansion and business reorientation of the group. She joined the firm in 1984 and focused her practice on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity, merchant banking, capital markets and international tax planning for multinational corporate clients. Prior to joining Shearman & Sterling, Ms. Wold served in the United States Department of the Treasury, advising on international legislative policy, regulations and treaties as a member of the Office of International Tax Counsel.

Ms. Wold is currently a director of Unilife Corporation, a NASDAQ-listed medical device company. She sits on Unilife’s Audit Committee, and she chairs its Strategic Partnerships Committee. She has served on boards of various professional and non-profit organizations.

Ms. Wold graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English and Theatre from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Linda Willett joined Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, in January 2010. Prior to joining Horizon, Ms. Willett was a Partner in the New York office of Sedgwick, Detert, Moran and Arnold and was Chair of the firm’s Drug and Medical Device practice group. Before that, she was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Bristol-Myers Squibb for almost twelve years, during which she supervised attorneys in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Ms. Willett began her legal practice at McCarter & English where she became a Partner in 1994. Before attending law school, she directed research and managed new product development at the Lederle Laboratories and Shulton, Inc. divisions of the American Cyanamid Company.

Ms. Willett chairs the Board of Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest women’s rights advocacy group. She is on the boards of The Women’s Forum of New York, The Learning Spring School for Children on the Spectrum of Autism and the Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation. Ms. Willett is a member of the Economic Club of New York and the European Justice Forum, which she helped to found. Ms. Willett has received numerous awards for her pro bono work in support of women and diversity in the workplace including the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine’s Athena Award and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association American Lawyer Media Diversity Award.

Ms. Willett received undergraduate and graduate degrees in science education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Duquesne University through National Science Foundation grants awarded to train teachers in the sciences. Her Masters in Library Science and Juris Doctor degrees are from Rutgers University.

Ms. Wheaton is President of The Wheaton Group, a law and business consulting firm. Ms. Wheaton serves as outside corporate counsel to Epson America, Inc. and provides legal counsel and business advice on complex commercial transactions for a variety of clients. Prior to founding The Wheaton Group, Ms. Wheaton was a partner at Guth | Christopher LLP where her legal practice included banking and corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, technology commercialization and international business transactions.

Prior to joining Guth | Christopher, Ms. Wheaton was the Vice President, Corporate Development and Legal Counsel for Titan Wireless, Inc., a subsidiary of The Titan Corporation, where she served as general counsel for a global telecommunications business, principally in developing nations in West Africa and Latin America. While at Titan, Ms. Wheaton also served as Vice President, Emerging Technologies and Businesses, responsible for advising the company on legal matters and business strategies for commercialization of technologies developed by Titan.

Ms. Wheaton began her career in private practice as a corporate lawyer with O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Shearman & Sterling. Ms. Wheaton’s other positions during her more than twenty years of practice include General Counsel of Zone Reactor, a technology commercialization company; Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Los Angeles Community Development Bank; and Senior Project Manager, Finance of Rebuild LA.

Ms. Wheaton served as the founding Chair of the Steering Committee of the California Minority Counsel Program (CMCP). Over the past twenty years, the CMCP’s programs to promote diversity in the legal profession have expanded opportunities for minority lawyers to serve as outside counsel to large corporations. Ms. Wheaton also has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Japanese American National Museum and its Executive Committee for the past six years. The mission of the Museum is to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Ms. Wheaton also serves on the Board of Directors of Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP), a diversity education and e-learning company.

Ms. Wheaton received her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and her B.A. in Political Science from Barnard College.

Susan T. Smith served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary to Hyatt Hotels Corporation from April 2005 through March 2010. She currently serves as Senior Vice President – Legal and retires from this position at the end of 2010. She has been a licensed attorney since 1982.

Although Ms. Smith is not a corporate or securities attorney by training, she has a strong corporate background from being an in-house attorney for the last 18 years and acting as Corporate Secretary and General Counsel to two successful companies. As a member of the executive teams and having the opportunity to work closely with the companies’ boards of directors during the pre- and post- Sarbanes-Oxley eras, she has demonstrated the ability to build and manage a large in-house legal function and act as the executive/legal liaison among the executive team, board and outside legal advisors on many issues.

Ms. Smith joined Hyatt in April 2005, shortly after a major restructuring of the Pritzker Family assets that created Global Hyatt Corporation (later re-named Hyatt Hotels Corporation), which held the Family’s hospitality assets. Ms. Smith consolidated the legal functions and expanded the legal team to approximately 40 members with staff in Chicago, Hong Kong, Zurich, Beijing and Delhi. Hyatt enjoyed a successful public offering in November 2009.

Prior to joining Hyatt, Ms. Smith served in a number of roles at First Health Group Corp., a publicly traded company that provided health benefit services to self-funded national employers, including Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. First Health was acquired by Coventry Health Care, Inc., in January 2005. Prior to her appointment as General Counsel she was the first in-house attorney at the company and from 1992 to 2005 built the legal function to greater than 30 staff members in three US cities who supported the hugely successful growth of the company from a small managed care company to a major preferred provider network, medical claims administrator and insurer.

Before joining First Health in 1992, Ms. Smith was a shareholder at Pryor, Carney & Johnson, PC, a Denver law firm. Leveraging her health care background she represented medical providers in all aspects of their practice, developed a strong trial and appellate practice and provided representation to insurance carriers and insureds in complex coverage matters.

Ms. Smith attended the University of Denver – Sturm College of Law. She Smith also has a B.S.N. (Nursing) from the University of Iowa and Master of Science degree from Texas Women’s University. She is a member of a number of legal professional organizations and serves on the board of The Rosecrance Foundation – Chicago. Rosecrance is an addiction treatment facility located in Rockford, Illinois. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Community Housing Association of DuPage (“CHAD”) and a member of its Governance Committee. Ms. Smith is married to David Smith; they have one son Zach, who attends college, and one very large Airedale.