In this episode of Real Estate for Breakfast, host Phil Coover is joined by his colleague and guest co-host LaTonya Ellis, and his former law school classmate, Nicole White, the newly appointed Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Avison Young. Avison Young is a full service global real estate company. Nicole and Phil briefly reminisce about their time as law students at DePaul University, but quickly jump into a conversation about Nicole’s new role as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Avison Young: what it entails, her career trajectory and how the company has grown so fast in such a short amount of time, and challenges for growth and culture in a post pandemic world.

During the episode, LaTonya shares that she too will be taking on a new position as Ice Miller’s Director of Legal Operations and Knowledge Management. She and Nicole acknowledge that there is a degree of uncertainty that accompanies taking on a new role, but they both admit that they are more excited for the chance to leverage their talents in new and different ways.

As their conversation continues, Phil, LaTonya and Nicole discuss the importance of workplace culture and how employees’ priorities have shifted during the pandemic. In particular, they agree that strategic growth and a healthy, flexible workplace culture can help retain employees and sustain revenue.

As Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Avison Young, Nicole promotes the firm’s corporate culture of trust and integrity through strategic growth initiatives and the overall management of the firm’s global legal affairs. She provides the senior leadership team and Board of Directors with legal guidance to achieve Avison Young’s objectives, including leveraging multidimensional data, technology and consultative solutions that enable clients to achieve their unique and rapidly transforming goals. In addition, Nicole handles complex business matters, mitigates risk and protects the firm’s competitive advantage. She also sits on the firm’s Executive Committee.

Prior to joining Avison Young, Nicole was an attorney for the Allstate Corporation. She earned her juris doctor from DePaul University College of Law and received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.