Registration is required before the event date: https://tinyurl.com/CCP-Opening-Session

Join us for our 21st Annual Law and Society kick-off event. We are delighted to have

For more than three decades, distinguished community and business leader Michele Lawrence has demonstrated leadership, professionalism, and temperament. Her life’s achievements are a testament to her purpose. As a licensed minister of the gospel, she uses her God-given gifts to enlighten and inspire others through preaching, teaching, and counseling.

January 2017 marked a new journey for Michele, which charted a path of confidence and courage. A step out into the deep, some may say, where she decided to take her background expertise in financial literacy, economic empowerment and counseling to new heights. MicheleSpeaks LLC. is a newly formed business that uniquely tailors a plan designed to showcase a persons’ gifts and promote their services. Through MicheleSpeaks LLC., workshops, boot camps, conferences and empowerment seminars are created to allow individuals to seek their true calling or master their gift.

Michele has also empowered herself to host a live radio show that airs on Wednesdays in PA, NJ and DE. The MicheleSpeaks radio show seeks to tackle wealth, wisdom, wellness, and worth as it pertains to women and people of color.

Michele’s extensive experience comes from spending 28 years at Wells Fargo. She retired in 2017 as the Area President and the Senior Vice President for the Philadelphia Retail market. The Philadelphia market includes 39 stores in Philadelphia, with more than 500 employees, $2.5 billion in deposits and $1 billion in loans. Through this position, she has served Philadelphia and its surrounding counties by educating and mentoring individuals and neglected communities on financial literacy and economic empowerment.

In early 2011, Michele launched the Saving Our Boys Leadership Development Institute, the mission of which is to prepare young men in grades 5 through 12 for success beyond high school by building character, developing leadership skills and instilling a sense of social responsibility. This is a continuous program with each new cohort of young men being actively mentored by the former, which creates a “my brother’s keeper” relationship.

Michele leads by example and serves on the boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Urban League of Philadelphia. Lawrence also served on the board of ACHIEVEability, an organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty by helping low-income, single parent and homeless families to achieve self-sufficiency; and Impact Charities, a public nonprofit agency working to provide youth and families with programs of a diverse nature to enhance the growth and development of a stable community. In addition, she served on the School District of Philadelphia’s Renaissance Advisory Board, the primary responsibility of which is to create the strategic planning process that ultimately transformed nonperforming schools to performing schools. Lawrence was also a member of the Urban Financial Services Coalition (USFC), which works to foster interest and expansion of the numbers of minorities in financial services, increase the understanding and use of financial services in low-income communities, enhance scholarship programs for minority youth in pursuit of financial service careers, and cultivate a premiere job bank of experienced minority professionals in the financial services industry.

Michele has been recognized by SmartCeo as Money Manager of the Year 2015, Operation Understanding Community Leader of the Year 2014 and The Network Journal as one of the “25 Most Influential Women in Business” for 2012. She received a Community Service Citation from Philadelphia Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. in 2011 and was recognized as a Woman on the Move by the Philadelphia Tribune, and as one of the 25 Women of Distinction by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2010.

Moderator: Malika Rahman, diversity fellow and visiting lecturer, Criminal Justice