Virginia G. Essandoh serves as the firm's Director of Diversity. In this role as a senior firm administrator, she sits on the firmwide Diversity Committee and, together with the co-chairs of the committee, reports directly to the Chair of the firm. Ms. Essandoh is responsible for overseeing, implementing, and providing strategic leadership to Ballard's diversity program, including the development and maintenance of diversity recruiting, retention, mentoring, and training programs for lawyers at all levels. She also serves as the public voice for Ballard's diversity-related outreach efforts, coordinates the firm's participation in external diversity events, and is a liaison to both internal and external diversity constituencies.
Before joining the firm, Ms. Essandoh was senior consultant at Altman Weil, Inc. In this capacity, she assisted in developing and implementing diversity and gender initiatives and strategies in private law firms and corporate legal departments; advised on organizational and management structures for law firms and corporate legal departments; and facilitated law firm strategic planning, client satisfaction, strategic marketing, and management structure analysis for her clients.