The Second City
JoAnne Smith Williams serves as the General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Director of Holden Industries, Inc., a 100% employee-owned company specializing in precision engineered products. With extensive legal experience, JoAnne has held significant roles including Assistant General Counsel at Brady Corporation, where responsibilities encompassed global commercial transactions, HR, and litigation. Previous positions range from founding WilliamsLaw, L.L.C., to providing legal counsel for various healthcare and technology companies. Additionally, JoAnne is an active CASA volunteer in Lake County, Illinois, and a conservatory student at The Second City, focused on comedy improv. JoAnne holds a JD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The Second City
Second City Works is the B2B side of The Second City, the world’s leading comedy theatre and school of improvisation. They collaborate with clients to create improv-based learning, digital content, and entertainment. By elevating messages so people want to listen, they help companies engage their workforce and win over customers. In short, theymake work better. The businesses that thrive in the chaos of ever-present change are the ones with a new toolkit. It’s a toolkit that values speed, agility, collaboration, comfort with change, willingness to fail, and the creativity to solve old problems in new ways. Ultimately, they have the toolkit of an improviser.