Tammy founded Lakewood Strategy & Consulting after a diverse 30+ year corporate and private practice career. Tammy has served in senior leadership roles in public and private companies during times of significant industry change and challenge. Tammy has built, restructured and led highly effective legal teams as a General Counsel, and has led corporate advocacy strategy efforts in global public affairs, government relations and crisis management roles.
Tammy’s senior leadership roles were with companies operating in complex regulatory and political environments. She has extensive experience in health care (WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (WCG), a Fortune 155/$20B managed care company acquired by Centene Corp. (CNC); Health Care Service Corp., a $1.1B mutual reserve operating five states’ Blue Cross plans) and food and marketing (Kellogg Company (K), a Fortune 234/$13B global food leader; Catalina Marketing, a $550M private equity-owned global media company). In private practice, Tammy was a commercial litigation partner with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons) and a tax litigator with Baker McKenzie.
Tammy is a change agent whose passion and skill in strategy, advocacy and delivering business results bring a unique focus to the issues on which she advises. Her litigation background allows her to quickly focus on all sides of an issue in developing offensive and defensive strategy and assessing risk. She has also sat in the same seat as her clients, responsible for protecting company interests while navigating crises and intense regulatory and competitive pressures. She is adept at building strategy support from board level down and ensuring flawless execution with multidisciplinary corporate teams. Tammy also has extensive corporate crisis/incident management experience.
Tammy has successfully managed companies through federal and state government inquiries, hearings and approvals, including the passage of the Affordable Care Act, staved off regulation of advertising of food to children by coalescing the industry around a self-regulatory program tied to nutrition standards, and has led efforts to implement and defend against legislative and administrative policy changes on a wide range of issues. She has managed complex food recalls and safety issues, high-stakes PR and reputational challenges, state and federal regulatory merger approvals and litigation reputational planning. She has represented companies before Congress, NGOs and global institutions including the EU and WHO.
Tammy is a magna cum laude graduate of Northwestern University Law School, where she was Managing Editor of the Northwestern University Law Review. She holds an M.S. in Taxation, with distinction, from DePaul University, and a B.B.A. in Accounting, summa cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago. Prior to law school, she was a tax CPA in public accounting.
Tammy is involved in various philanthropic leadership roles. She was the 2015 recipient of the Women’s Bar Foundation of Illinois’ Esther Rothstein Award for service to women attorneys and serves on the non-profit Boards of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic, HFS Chicago Scholars, Chicago House and The Theater School at DePaul University. She served for several years as Board Development Chair for the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicagoland & NW Indiana. Tammy is originally from south suburban Chicago and now resides in both Chicago and St. Petersburg, FL.
