黛布拉·布鲁诺
2017年3月20日
With members in all 50 states 和 more than 80 countries, the D.C. 酒吧 is beginning a regular feature to profile the people who make up our community. Read about your peers, their lives, 和 their work around the world.
Never let it be said that 香农纳什 passes up an opportunity to do something a little different.
澳门赌场官网, 税务专家, certified public accountant, 和 entrepreneur—who started her career in D.C. law firms—has taken her peripatetic life 和 fashioned it into a series of jobs 和 other ventures.
She was involved in producing a Cannes Film Festival-winning documentary on autism.
Several years ago, she opened an actors’ lounge in Atlanta.
早些时候, she was based in 瑞士, where her in-house job with Amgen required her to travel to France, 西班牙, 和意大利.
Today, Nash, 46, is vice president of finance for Cumulus Media, based in San Francisco.
She credits her background for providing her with a foundation for everything that came after. She worked as a venture fund 和 tax lawyer for Cooley LLP (formerly Cooley Godward) 和 as a tax 和 corporate attorney for K&L Gates LLP (formerly Kirkpatrick & 洛克哈特).
“Those early years at law firms were invaluable because of the training they provide. They teach you to think 和 to communicate,” Nash says.
当她丈夫, 比尔, a former Navy lieutenant, l和ed an interview at biopharmaceutical giant Amgen in Los Angeles, 她尾随而去. In the middle of her husb和’s interview, he called her 和 asked her to take a cab over to the company’s 办公室.
“I thought they were trying to convince the spouse,她回忆道。, since the job required a move to the company’s Lucerne, 瑞士, 办公室. But when she got to the Amgen 办公室, she found herself sitting down with the head of the tax department, 和, 最终, was hired along with her husb和. “It was crazy—I was totally ambushed,她说。.
Nash spent two years working for Amgen in 瑞士. “At this point, my mind is being completely exp和ed,她说。. “I was meeting so many people of so many different backgrounds.不仅如此, but her in-house counsel job required her to travel to other countries where Amgen had operations.
Her years in 瑞士 made her realize something about herself. “When I came back to the U.S. in 2005, I realized I am a completely different person. I am no longer a person who works at a law firm. I had all these amazing experiences 和 they were not traditional lawyer experiences.”
After 瑞士, Nash 和 her husb和 l和ed in Los Angeles. 大约在那个时候, their 18-month-old son Jason was diagnosed with autism, which was “challenging” in many ways, 她说. She got involved with the group known today as Autism Speaks. (More recently, she has been less involved in autism issues, Nash says. Her son, now almost 19, is in a post-high school transition program.)
Dealing with her son’s disability was also how Nash got into the entertainment world, 她说. The hours are more flexible—people in the entertainment industry tend to wake up late 和 work late, which meant that she could spend the early hours of the day taking her son to therapy. She went to work for the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, doing finance 和 human resources work.
Through Allen, an actress, dancer, 和 director, Nash made several connections. “I got introduced to everyone. 像,每个人都.” Nash also says that Allen taught her confidence 和 gave her credibility in the entertainment industry.
当她丈夫’s next post was in Atlanta, Nash realized that the city, which was in its infancy in the entertainment world, was about to become a center for film production, so she worked in finance for several production companies there. In that process, she joined Sunseeker Media 和 helped produce 给我的心灵增添色彩, a documentary about autism with a focus on parents of color—including Nash—which won “best short documentary” at the 2013 American Pavilion at Cannes. The company then started a nonprofit based on the film 和 sold the rights to the documentary to BET/Centric.
Nash also got involved in an entrepreneurial venture, an actors’ lounge called the Green Room. “That was so much fun,她说。, “but at the end of the day, running a business like that requires you to be there 24–7,” 和 the lounge closed. For future reference, 她指出, she would pick a location that might be less central but that offered better parking.
The family eventually moved to San Francisco, where they are now based, 和 where Nash added radio to her skill set. Cumulus Media owns 454 stations in 90 markets around the country. At Cumulus’s San Francisco branch, Nash also runs the human resources department. Being a lawyer has been helpful for employment law issues, 她指出.
One current challenge is that Cumulus Media is on the verge of bankruptcy, with a federal judge last month rejecting its most recent refinancing plan that would reduce its $2.40亿的债务负担. “The industry is definitely in flux,” Nash says. Other radio giants have even larger debts, she adds.
Meanwhile, Nash is looking toward the future. Her ultimate goal, 她说, is to get on the board of a for-profit corporation. In San Francisco, she joined Hipower, a group to empower women toward success. “It’s the different things you need to do to chart your course,她说。. It’s made her realize that doing in-house work 和 financial advising for a range of companies has helped her more than being a traditional lawyer.
“If your end goal is that you want to be in the C-suite somewhere, you need to have these experiences on your résumé,她总结道。.
