The Art of Negotiation: Influencing Boardroom Decisions & Getting The Board Onside

Samantha Martin is a special counsel in the Financial Restructuring Group in Stroock’s New York office. She has significant experience representing debtors, official committees of unsecured creditors, ad hoc groups of bondholders and lenders, individual creditors, purchasers, and liquidating trustees in all aspects of complex corporate restructurings, including chapter 11 cases and out-of-court restructurings. She also has advised foreign representatives in chapter 15 recognition proceedings.

Samantha currently serves as co-chair of the New York Chapter of the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC NY) and as co-chair of the Stroock Women's Affinity Group. Samantha also recently served as a member of the Executive Committee for the International Insolvency Institute NextGen Program and as a member of the Red Party Committee for Her Justice.

Marla G. Zwas is the inaugural General Counsel and Secretary of Truck Hero, Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer and online retailer of pickup truck and Jeep accessories. With the support of her legal team located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she oversees the company’s governance, compliance, commercial and intellectual property matters.

She was previously Deputy General Counsel for Flagstar Bancorp, Inc., a NYSE-listed full-service bank and one of the nation’s largest residential mortgage companies. At Flagstar, Ms. Zwas oversaw the corporate and employment legal teams as well as the office of the corporate secretary. Ms. Zwas was also Senior Counsel-Corporate Affairs for Chrysler Group LLC (now FCA), where she managed all public company matters and played a key role in the company’s historic refinancing to repay $7.6B in government loans.

Prior to Chrysler Group, Ms. Zwas was General Counsel for Toyoda Gosei North America and Associate General Counsel for PulteGroup, where she handled a broad range of compliance, commercial and government affairs matters.

Ms. Zwas received a B.S. from Cornell University and, after spending her final year of law school as a Visiting Student at the University of Michigan Law School, she received her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Since 2014, Danette has been in-house at Pearson, plc, a U.K.-based $4.9 billion media and education company with 20,000+ employees and operations in 70 countries throughout North America, South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

Today, Danette is Pearson’s Chief Compliance Officer. Her work touches nearly every aspect of the business and she partners with board members and committees, functional heads, regional leaders, and business unit leaders throughout the enterprise. During her six years with the company, Danette has earned international and national recognition, including: ? Lawyer Monthly Magazine’s “Women in Law” award in global compliance (2020) ? Finalist for Women in Compliance Awards’ “Chief Compliance Officer, large company” (2019 and 2020) ? Winner of Top Compliance Counsel’s “First Chair Award” (2019) ? Finalist for Women in Compliance Awards’ “In-House Compliance Team of the Year” (2018) Danette came to her role through a non-traditional path. Before joining Pearson, she served as the Executive Counsel to one governor, an advisor to another governor, the first general counsel for a state telecommunications authority, an AV-rated partner and litigator in an Atlanta law firm, and a chief state lobbyist for a Top 20 university.

Her varied background has been a tremendous asset in Danette’s core areas of strategic business planning, legal advice, program design and implementation, and team development. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated that real results come from a rock-solid reputation that clients, consumers, regulators, corporate partners, and stakeholders trust.

Danette is a leader who is committed to sharing success and developing internal talent; her team members regularly earn promotions, awards, certifications, and invitations for external speaking engagements. Danette is married to Jon, who is also a lawyer.

As Phoenix Tower International’s Global General Counsel, Ms. Cuprys oversees the Legal, Asset Management, Lease Administration, and Compliance Departments. Prior to joining PTI, Ms. Cuprys was SVP, Associate General Counsel, and Chief Compliance Officer for Univision Communications, Inc., Senior Counsel at World Fuel Services Corp., and led litigation and commercial matters for LATAM Airlines Group, S.A.

Ms. Cuprys has extensive experience managing legal and compliance risk in multi-national business environments, including complex international negotiations and disputes. Ms. Cuprys has developed compliance programs and regularly speaks publicly on global compliance topics. She has led robust teams of attorneys, paralegals, contract managers, customer service professionals, and other legal staff.

Aleksandra holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Miami School of Law, a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University. Ms. Cuprys is admitted to practice law in the State of Florida.

Ling-Ling Nie is General Counsel and Vice President for Ethics and Compliance at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she serves as chief legal counsel for the Institute and is a member of the President’s Cabinet.

She previously served as Chief Compliance Officer & Assistant General Counsel at Panasonic Corporation of North America, where she was responsible for managing the global corporate compliance and ethics program for over 25 subsidiaries and division companies. Prior to that, she served as a Senior Advisor to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

In 2019, she was selected as a University of Georgia “40 Under 40” honoree, and was the recipient of the Women’s Leadership Award from the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association. She is a former division President of Panasonic’s Women Connect organization and currently serves as a Global Mentor for the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA). Ling-Ling also serves on the Board of Directors for the Georgia Lawyers for the Arts and the Actor’s Express Theatre.

She is a graduate of the University of Georgia and received her law degree from Washington and Lee University’s School of Law, and is licensed to practice in both Georgia and Virginia.