Women in the Workplace for Women’s History Month

Anne Ladky
Executive Director of Women Employed

Anne Ladky is a founding member of Women Employed. She joined the staff in 1977, and was named director in 1985. Ladky is a nationally recognized expert on equal opportunity issues, workplace fairness, workforce development and higher education policy, and issues affecting low-paid working women.  She has developed and directed innovative advocacy and training programs designed to improve women’s economic status.  She is the author of numerous reports, articles, and testimony on women’s economic issues.

Under Ladky’s leadership, Women Employed has won numerous awards for program and management excellence, including the U.S. Department of Labor’s Exemplary Public Interest Contribution (EPIC) Award, the Alphawood Foundation’s Award for Sustained Excellence in Advocacy, the Sara Lee Spirit Award for organizational excellence, and the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation Urban Leadership Award.

Ladky has served on many public boards and commissions including the Chicago Workforce Investment Council, the Chicago Workforce Board, the Higher Education Finance Study Commission, the Illinois Workforce Investment Council, and the Community Advisory Council of the City Colleges of Chicago.  In 2007, she was named a Visiting Social Activist at the Center for the Education of Women at the University of Michigan.

Charisse Witherspoon
Former President of the National Association of Women Business Owners and
President and CEO of Witherspoon Marketing

Charisse Witherspoon is president and chief executive officer of Witherspoon Marketing Group, Inc, a marketing and management consulting firm established in 1993. In 2004, Witherspoon was unanimously elected president of the Publicity Club of Chicago (PCC), the national largest organization of independent public relations practitioners. She became the first African American elevated to that position in the organization 63‐year history.

Prior to founding her firm, Witherspoon directed public relations for the Chicago Defender newspaper (coordinating three Bud Billiken Parades) and WBEZ Radio. She also hosted a public service radio program for more than a decade, covering local and national business issues in more than 500 interviews.

As a small business owner, her firm has worked effectively for other small businesses, as well as organizations such as the City of Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution.

Witherspoon has won local national and international awards for creative and effective business communications. Currently, she also serves as NAWBO Chicago’s Board Director for Political and External Affairs, and has been a 5‐time moderator for this event.