Jammie Shaw

I attribute my success to how I was raised and my faith. My mom always made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to do. Moving from Brownsville, Tennessee to Atlanta was hard - in the country everyone knows everyone, but in the city you have to fend for yourself. My mom always said, remember to pray, remember God is first, and she's been my biggest support. I start out my mornings with my mom on the phone, and we pray together every morning. I was raised to pray first and ask God, and I feel like that's what God led me to do. I went through a lot of trials and tribulations - I got divorced when I moved here and went through a lot of different pains. But I got strong, and I woke up one morning and it was like a new woman in me. I've been following everything since. My faith and my mother's support have been the foundation of everything I've accomplished.

The best career advice and support I've received came from two incredible women who have been my mentors. Anana helped me get to the place where I am - she gave me focus for what my next steps in life should be and made me understand that I dare to do it. I felt like I wasn't competent to do the things I was being offered to do and wasn't motivated, but she motivated me through the whole process. She was amazing to me and is one of my biggest highlights. My cousin Cheree has been my support system throughout the whole thing. She's a Director at Pepsi, and just like me, she started in sales with them from the bottom, and now she's one of the directors for their West TN Division, overseeing so many teams. She's super strong, and she's the one who helped me motivate myself to get to where I am, to do what I needed to do, to be a scholar. These two women showed me that with the right support and belief in yourself, you can achieve anything.

My advice to young women who want to become a director of operations is to continue to grow in yourself. Never count yourself out, and always look for ways to grow mentally and support your mental balance. Don't settle, and don't let anyone tell you no. Just keep growing and don't ever stop growing. Don't take no for an answer. I know what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominant area - I work with majority men, my owners and managing partners are male, and I'm the next woman in charge. It's hard to show how strong you can be in a room full of empowering people, but I want to show other women how to do it and how to over-succeed. I don't want another woman to feel alone like I did. If I can at least meet a woman where she is, I can say, hey, I was there, let me tell you how I overcame that feeling. Continue to expand your own horizons, and as long as you keep your eye focused on your dreams and never take no for an answer, you will gain the success that you seek.

In today’s legal landscape, the path for women—especially in leadership—is both inspiring and undeniably demanding. While women now enter the legal profession in record numbers, the climb to senior leadership remains steep, with only a fraction of top roles held by women and even fewer by women of color . The challenge is not a lack of capability, but a system that often requires women to continuously prove, adapt, and outperform in spaces still shaped by longstanding biases and expectations. From navigating high-pressure environments and demanding caseloads to balancing visibility with scrutiny, women in law are expected to lead with excellence while carrying an unspoken weight of representation. And yet, despite these barriers, they continue to rise—redefining leadership, reshaping the culture, and proving that strength, resilience, and brilliance are not exceptions, but the standard.

The most important values to me are helping people and giving back to my community. I'm a huge nonprofit lover - I love helping people. I work with a nonprofit called Dignified Diva where we feed the homeless and give them personal toiletries in a purse so when they leave, they don't have any issues with getting their personal belongings. We help them find jobs and find them suits and things to wear so we can get them put in a position to succeed. In my professional life, I love helping families stay together and understanding the emotional nature of family law. My faith is also central to everything I do - I pray all the time and start out my mornings with my mom on the phone praying together every morning. I was raised to pray first and ask God, and that foundation guides everything I do. I also believe in supporting other women - I want to help other women be amazing and show them they can over-succeed, because I never want another woman to feel alone like I did.