New role for Alteryx co-founder Libby Duane Adams

Involved With Twitter, COVID, Baseball, Soccer

The six winners of last year’s Women in Business awards, held virtually in October 2020, won verdicts, accepted new jobs, retired and even created a minor baseball controversy.

This year’s event, which will be keynoted by prior winner Patty Arvielo, co-founder and president of New American Funding, takes place on Oct. 28 at the Marriott Irvine. It’s the Business Journal’s 27th edition of the event.

Expect a slate of newsmakers from the next crop of honorees. In the meantime, here’s an update on last year’s winners, many of whom continue to make headlines:

Libby Duane Adams: An Advocacy Job

Chief Customer Officer Olivia “Libby” Duane Adams, who co-founded Alteryx Inc. in 1997, in December stepped into a different role at the Irvine data analytics firm—chief advocacy officer.

She’s now focusing on “strengthening upskilling efforts for customers to enable a culture of analytics, scaling the presence of Alteryx in academia and furthering diversity and inclusion in the technology space.”

It’s been a year of change for Alteryx (NYSE: AYX), the most valuable Orange County-based software company.

Adams’ fellow co-founder Dean Stoecker stepped down as chief executive last October, taking the executive chairman role. He was succeeded as CEO by Silicon Valley veteran Mark Anderson.

The rate of sales growth at the firm has slowed and during the past year, shares have fallen in half to $75 and a $5 billion market cap; it’s still far above its 2017 IPO price of $14 a share.

Adams is one of the few female founders of a technology company that has successfully gone public. According to the latest company’s proxy, Adams owns more than 1 million shares worth about $75 million.

It ranked No. 9 on this year’s Business Journal list of largest public companies by market valuation.

Adams was also a nominee for the Business Journal’s 2021 Innovator of the Year Award, which were announced last week (see story, page 4).

“When co-founding Alteryx 24 years ago, the focus is always on our amazing customers and the analytics community to diversify workforces, upskill people talent and offer meaningful business outcomes with data,” she posted on LinkedIn. “Thrilled to see the work continue and thrive.”

Deidre Pujols: A Baseball Saga

Nonprofit leader Deidre Pujols created headlines in the baseball world in February when she posted on social media that this might be the last season for her husband, Major League Baseball future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols.

“Today is the first day of the last season of one of the most remarkable careers in sports,” Diedre wrote in her original post. “I’m talking about my husband @albertpujols who since the time he was a child would eat, sleep and breathe this sport. I have had the privilege to walk out 23 years of this baseball journey and it is with such a full heart that I speak a blessing over him as he finishes this good race!”

She later clarified that this was the final season of his 10-year, $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. In May, Albert Pujols’ career with the Angels ended abruptly as they released the future Hall of Famer.

Angel owner Arte Moreno praised Deidre, as well as Albert when that took place.

“Since his Rookie of the Year Season in 2001, Albert and his wife Deidre have generously given their time and resources to countless charities throughout the world,” Moreno said in a statement. “We are thankful to the entire Pujols Family.”

Deidre Pujols is a big hitter in her own right, as the founder of three nonprofit organizations with local ties.

It started with the Pujols Family Foundation in 2005, a nonprofit that’s largely dedicated to helping individuals with Down syndrome, which her family has personal experience with. The foundation kept busy with events every month this past year, including a sign language beginner program and adult music therapy.

In 2016, Deidre formed Strike Out Slavery, an initiative that aims to raise awareness of human trafficking.

“The New Year gives me new hope for a healthy, productive 2021, and for the progress we stand to make in the fight against modern-day slavery,” she wrote on the foundation’s website in January. “Human trafficking is modern-day slavery. It involves the illegal trade of human beings, many of whom are among society’s most vulnerable.

Her third nonprofit, Open Gate International, was formed to train people coming out of trafficking situations in culinary arts and hospitality, two personal passions of Pujols. It’s now operating in four international countries, such as teaching culinary classes and holding training events.

As for Albert, he didn’t have to travel far for his newest team. He was picked up in May by the Los Angeles Dodgers and last month hit a home run against his former team.

Talya Nevo-Hacohen: COVID Insights

Talya Nevo-Hacohen, chief investment officer of real estate investment trust Sabra Health Care REIT, has seen firsthand the effects of the COVID-19 on the elderly.

“The pandemic was not uniform in its impact on occupancy,” she told analysts on an Aug. 5 conference call to discuss the REIT’s second-quarter results. “Sabra’s managed independent living portfolio experienced less occupancy loss than our assisted living portfolio, and its recovery has been more gradual.”

Sabra’s investment portfolio included 41,836 beds/units in 423 real estate properties in the U.S. and Canada as of June 30.

Sabra has kept busy on the acquisition front, such as its second quarter when it bought a skilled nursing care facility for $33.9 million and made an $11 million equity investment on a 150-unit senior housing development. It also completed the sale of two skilled nursing/transitional care facilities for net sale proceeds of $5.9 million.

The company decided to end its Enlivant Joint Venture with private equity firm TPG, citing the negative impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the JV’s financial performance.

Sabra (Nasdaq: SBRA) currently sports a $3.6 billion market cap, which is about $800 million higher than a year ago.

Nevo-Hacohen, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, told analysts in August that the REIT is pursuing a lot of transactions that may not always make news.

“We are getting things done,” said Nevo-Hacohen, who is listed as “the general” on Sabra’s website identifying its top executives.

“It’s not splashy headlines, but that’s OK. We’re just trying to just keep doing what we know how to do and do it well and make those deals accretive.”

Liz McKinley: ‘Managing Me’

What millennials want at a workplace recently became a focus of Liz McKinley, the founder and CEO of Huntington Beachbased fuel and petroleum products distributor Pinnacle Petroleum Inc.

A Forbes article suggested they desire a fantastic workplace that permits dogs and flexible hours, all of which she offered. Above all, they want to feel like they’re making a difference.

“We really work on our messaging and how we’re different and where we sit in the market,” she said during a March podcast hosted by Gina Osborn.

“I really try to empower everybody.”

McKinley empowered herself in an industry not known for women entrepreneurs.

After she put herself through college at Oklahoma State University studying finance and marketing, she took on a job as an oil trader at Koch Industries Inc., which is now the nation’s second-largest privately owned company.

That decision would send her on a path that played out over the next 30 years as she opened a Birmingham, Ala. office for Koch and then transitioned on to work as a commodities trader at other fuel companies.

In 1995, McKinley launched Pinnacle Petroleum in her home with three employees in a single office and a copy machine stationed in the bathtub. It now counts a team around 30 and annual sales around $200 million.

Nowadays, she participates in local nonprofits like Make-A-Wish Orange County and the Inland Empire and Second Harvest Food Bank. She likes women organizations where she can find females “dealing with the same issues I am.”

Her most recent change was due to the pandemic, she told the podcaster.

“I’m an A-type overachiever. I’m always trying so hard to do the right thing and be the best.

“I realized that I could relax a little and that COVID was the big year for honing that skill. There was so much going on that I had zero control over, and I had to let things go. The biggest thing was managing me.”

La Shawn Stanford: ‘Authentic and True’

La Shawn Stanford made a pivotal decision last December—she retired after 25 years at UPS Inc.

It was 1995 when she took what she thought would be a seasonal job as a delivery driver. In the middle of a divorce and having to provide for two children, she rushed to find a job that would pay the bills and put food on the table.

After only one year as a driver, she never expected to be approached by management and offered a leadership role.

“I was baffled,” Stanford told the Business Journal a year ago. “I was taken aback, and I thought, ‘I don’t have the skills.’”

Her supervisors believed in her, telling her she could be an asset to the organization. She was promoted to be a full-time supervisor of her fellow drivers and then climbed the corporate ladder to a variety of executive positions.

Then she became UPS’s West Region Community Relations Manager where she oversaw a $1.2 million budget to help 167,000 employees in 26 states become more involved with their communities. It was in this role that the Business Journal last year recognized her with a Women in Business Award in the category of Women on the Move.

She was thrilled to find herself one of 500 of Orange County’s most influential executives.

“24 years ago, I was just looking for a job!” she posted on her LinkedIn page. “Never thought I’d be in the Orange County Business Journal’s 2020 OC 500 Directory of Influence Magazine. Stay Authentic and True!”

Michele Johnson: A Winning Litigator

Michele Johnson, a senior partner at Latham & Watkins, continued demonstrating why she is considered one of the nation’s top litigators.

In July, she won a complete defense jury verdict on behalf of NextGen Healthcare Inc.

In December, she won dismissal of securities class action against Twitter Inc. and its CEO and CFO arising out of fixes to Twitter users’ privacy settings.

Last November, she won a first-round dismissal with prejudice of securities fraud class action against regenerative-tissue developer PolarityTE.

Also last year, she won a summary judgment on behalf of the United States Soccer Federation in its litigation with the US Senior Women’s National Team regarding equal pay.

In January, The American Lawyer magazine named Latham & Watkins as the Litigation Department of the Year in California. Johnson, who is global chair of Litigation & Trial Department, which has 800 lawyers, accepted the award on behalf of her firm.

“So many people play a role in our successes–our lawyers, paralegals, litigation support teams, and of course, our clients,” she said in a statement. “My personal and sincere thanks to them all. To work with all of these people, and to be part of such an incredible global legal community, I am extremely grateful.”