Top 25 Most Powerful Women: Featuring Five of Denver’s Strongest Women Leaders (Part II)

The holidays are in full-swing, which means one thing: The Top 25 Most Powerful Women Gala is right around the corner! The Gala will mark the 5th anniversary of the event, and will recognize the achievements of not only 2017’s Top 25, but that of the past four years as well. These 125 women represent the highest level of business performance and community leadership in Denver. We will be highlighting five honorees each week as we count down to the event. We hope you enjoy getting to know these wonderful women as much as we have. Their accomplishments are certainly worth celebrating, and we are honored to do so.

Tickets are still available, so reserve your spot now!

This week we will be highlighting Molly Rauzi, Helen Atkeson, Jane Okun Bomba, Laura Love, and Stephanie Donner. Congratulations on your many achievements, ladies!

Molly Rauzi

Molly Rauzi is a consultant and Chief Information Officer with the strategy execution firm Gagen MacDonald.  Molly brings her experience in systems management leading large, complex business transformation, culture and organizational change initiatives to her clients. She advises on the governance of corporate functions and shared services across the enterprise. Her experience and insights have helped numerous organizations ready their workforces for the many changes new technologies, new business models and new strategies bring through strategic communications. Prior to joining Gagen MacDonald, Molly was Managing Director leading the Business Advisory Services Practice in the Denver office of Grant Thornton LLP.

Molly served as an appointee of then Mayor John Hickenlooper (now the Governor of Colorado) as the Chief Information Officer for the City and County of Denver. Before working for the Mayor of Denver, Molly served as the Director of Technology for Denver International Airport.

Molly also serves on the board of the Colorado Technology Association, NewCloud Networks and Craig Hospital. 

 

Helen Atkeson

Helen Clark Atkeson works tirelessly for her clients, managing to balance with nearly seamless precision her many volunteer commitments, a rich family life (including five children) and superlative client work.

Helen is a partner at Hogan Lovells in the firm’s public finance practice. She has worked for decades with cities, states, public authorities, other governmental entities, and non-profit entities in the United States to fund their capital programs. Her work shapes communities, with the construction of convention centers, low-income housing, airports, roads, college dorms, hospitals, and museums, to name a few.

Colleagues describe her as an extremely hard worker, willing to commit the time necessary to maintain exemplary client relationships and achieve the best results. And when Helen becomes involved with an organization as a volunteer, she devotes herself to that organization. Because she gives of herself so fully, she makes lasting impacts in the organizations she volunteers with. Helen most recently served as Chair of the Women’s Bean Project Board of Directors, influencing the lives of women today and generations of the future. Helen also leads the Denver’s women initiative for the firm, which includes mentoring younger women lawyers. She is considered a leader by all those fortunate enough to work alongside her.

Helen moved to Denver “for a few years” after finishing a clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals in her hometown of Washington, D.C. She joined the firm in 1993 when the Denver office opened.

Jane Okun Bomba

Jane Okun Bomba is EVP, Chief Administrative Officer at IHS Markit.   Throughout her career, Jane has led large transformational initiatives, implementing disciplined change management programs in parallel to ensure minimal disruption to enterprise performance.  She has had particular success in engaging a diverse, global workforce through deliberate communications and team engagement activities, and travels extensively to meet in person with employees and investors.

Jane joined IHS in 2004 to lead the company’s IPO after which she assumed responsibility for many company challenges: the rebranding of the company, the development and implementation of a single global ERP and launching the company’s Corporate Sustainability function. Following the closing of the recent merger with Markit, Jane assumed the newly created Chief Administrative Officer role and is now leading the integration of all human resource policies and practices creating a great employee experience for 13,000 colleagues globally, and ensuring merger success through world class human capital management.

Prior to IHS, Jane was a partner at Genesis, Inc. and headed investor relations at Velocom, MediaOne Group, and Northwest Airlines.  Jane held management positions in corporate finance at Northwest Airlines and American Airlines, and started her career with Price Waterhouse.

Jane serves on the Boards of the American Diabetes Association, the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and the National Investor Relations Institute.  She is a member of the University of Michigan School of Literature, Science and Arts Visiting Committee.
A native of New York, Jane holds both a BGS and an MBA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  She completed graduate studies at the Stockholm School of Economics, and board director education in the Women’s Director Development Program at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and the Directors’ Consortium.

Laura Love

As the founder of GroundFloor Media (GFM) and the co-founder of its sister agency, CenterTable, Laura Love provides vision and leadership for the Denver-based agency she founded in 2001. In the past 15 years, Laura has taken a business she started in her basement in Boulder, Colo., and built it into one of the region’s fastest growers, boasting a national client base that has included Coors Light, Starbucks Coffee Company, Qdoba Mexican Grill, the Special Olympics USA National Games, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Level 3 and BNSF Railway.

The agency is an award-winning marketing communications firm that was named the Best Boutique Agency to Work For in the nation by The Holmes Report, an influential public relations industry newsletter. It was also recognized by the Denver Business Journal as one of the top small companies on its Best Places to Work list for seven years in a row. The agency is a certified B Corporation and was also honored by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce as the number two top Small Business of the Year and has twice been named to Outside Magazine’s annual “Best Places to Work” list.

Laura was named by Governor John Hickenlooper to the Denver 150, an honor that recognized 150 unsung heroes for their contributions to the Denver community. Laura was also named a finalist for the Denver Business Journal’s 2006 and 2007 Outstanding Women in Business awards, an accolade that recognizes women in Denver for their significant contributions to their industry and their community. She was also recognized as one of the “Forty under 40” by the Denver Business Journal. On an international level, Laura was honored with the Kauffman
Community Award for her personal and corporate commitment to the Tennyson Center for Children, an award honoring outstanding individual entrepreneurs who have made a significant difference in their local communities.

Laura understands the importance of community involvement and is committed both personally and professionally to helping whenever possible. Since she started the agency, Laura has dedicated at least 10 percent of GFM’s work to nonprofit clients and pro bono accounts, and she recently launched GFM’s new private foundation, The Get Grounded Foundation. Additionally, Laura and her team members are committed to various non-profit organizations throughout the country. She is past president of the Colorado chapter of the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO); serves on the Downtown Denver Partnership Board of Directors; and is a member of the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce, the communications and marketing committee for The Denver Foundation and the Denver Art Museum marketing & strategic alliance committee. She is also active on the boards of several organizations, including Downtown Denver Inc., Tennyson Center for Children and Havern School.

Drawing from a background in journalism and extensive experience in media relations, Laura earned a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University. In her spare time, she continues to learn a few things from her family including a teenage daughter and two young sons that never seem to stop moving. She dreams about running (or actually finishing) half marathons again, tries to break away to the mountains, and travels internationally whenever she can.

Stephanie Donner

Stephanie F. Donner is the Chief Legal and People Officer, and Corporate Secretary for Galvanize Inc., a Colorado-based dynamic learning environment with over 300 employees.  Students at Galvanize learn software engineering, data science, and entrepreneurship, alongside startup and established companies that work in the Galvanize space.  As Chief People and Legal Officer, Stephanie is an Officer of the Company and oversees all legal, human resources, compliance and government relations matters.

Prior to joining Galvanize, Stephanie served as Chief Legal Counsel for Colorado Governor John W. Hickenlooper, advising the Governor on legislative and policy issues, over 90 judicial appointments (including 3 Supreme Court Justices), and emergency management issues.  Stephanie also served Governor Hickenlooper as Deputy Chief of Staff and Executive Director and General Counsel for the Colorado Recovery and Resiliency Office. In those roles, Stephanie lead the coordinated response to recover from the largest natural disaster in Colorado history and pursued and advocated for millions of dollars to assist Coloradans recovering from fires and floods. Prior to joining the Governor, Stephanie was an associate at Morrison & Foerster in the Securities, Litigation, Enforcement , White Collar practice group and also routinely defended clients in breach of contract and employment disputes.  Stephanie clerked at the Federal District Court for the District of Colorado and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Houston Law Center, Order of the Coif and Order of the Barons.  While in law school, she served as Notes and Comments Editor for the Houston Law Review.

Stephanie currently serves as a board member for the following organizations: Girls, Inc., Board of Trustees for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, The Denver Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District, The Governmental Entrepreneurs Accelerators Program.