Duby McDowell is the president of Duby McDowell Communications LLC, a Hartford-based public relations firm that provides press relations, media training, crisis and reputation management, speaker training and speechwriting. She has more than 20 years of experience in journalism and state politics, and is best known for 15 years of political reporting for local television. A graduate from Harvard University, McDowell also studied journalism at the University of Missouri.
Patricia “Paddi” LeShane is CEO of Sullivan & LeShane Inc., a government lobbying and public relations firm in Hartford. She has served as an instructor in campaign finance and ethics at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University in addition to serving on the board of directors for the Washington, D.C.-based Public Affairs Council. She has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Connecticut Girls State Program, Women Executives in State Government, the National Association of Women Business Owners, the Girl Scouts of Connecticut and the University of Hartford. A graduate of Springfield College with a Bachelor of Science degree in community leadership and urban development, LeShane also earned a Master in Health Care Administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Janice M. Gruendel has worked with Gov. M. Jodi Rell as her senior policy advisor regarding children and youth. She also served as a senior government leader for 13 years in four state agencies: the Departments of Mental Retardation, Children and Youth Services, Public Health and Corrections. She is a creator of interactive learning materials with Microsoft and McMillan McGraw Hill, co-producer of an Emmy-nominated documentary on children and HIV, and co-founder of Connecticut Voices for Children, an advocacy nonprofit. She received a Ph.D. from Yale University in developmental psychology and a master’s degree in educational psychology from the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education.
Gwendolyn Smith Iloani is president and CEO of Hartford-based Smith Whiley & Co., a private equity firm that specializes in providing mezzanine debt and private equity for management buyouts, recapitalizations, acquisitions and growth capital. Black Enterprise Magazine ranks Smith Whiley among the largest African-American-owned private equity firms in the country. Iloani earned a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a M.B.A. from the University of Hartford. She has a long history of civic involvement with a wide variety of organizations, and has received numerous community service and business leadership awards. Iloani was recently named one of the “75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street” and one of the “50 Most Powerful Black Women in Business” by Black Enterprise Magazine.
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