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Michele Penzer, 38
Partner
Latham & Watkins
If we had said to the Qatari government, `Do you want a young, female, Jewish lawyer on your team?' I'm sure the answer would have been, `No, that won't work,' " says Bill Voge, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, recalling one of Michele Penzer's early projects.
Nevertheless, he put the young attorney on the case--the financing of a multibillion-dollar liquefied natural gas project, the first of its kind.
The clients didn't know what to do with her when they met her at the airport. "They weren't accustomed to women coming to the country for business," Mr. Voge says.
Over the next 18 months, Ms. Penzer became an expert on her clients' industry, writing the entire offering memo for their project. But nothing in law school could have prepared her for the cultural side of closing the deal.
"I was sure to wear pantsuits and not to shake anyone's hand," says Ms. Penzer of her first international transaction.
Though Ms. Penzer, the daughter of a spice merchant from Alexandria, Egypt, grew up on Long Island, her upbringing had an international flair that has benefited her over the years. Thanks in part to the fact that French was her first language--her parents are fluent in five--the global aspect of her job came naturally.
"I quickly realized she was a lot smarter than I am," Mr. Voge says. "The Qataris fell in love with her."
Since handling the Qatar project, Ms. Penzer has risen through the ranks of the firm, closing deal after deal. The same confidence and people skills she exhibited on that early transaction helped her make partner at 32.
At 36, she became the youngest attorney and the first woman to be elected to the executive committee, the seven-member board governing Latham & Watkins--the No. 2 firm in the country in 2005 when ranked by revenues. The election came as quite a surprise to Ms. Penzer, who went to law school only as a delaying tactic after graduating from Harvard.
"It seemed like a good thing to do while I figured out what to do next," she says.