As a member of the 2019-20 class of Leadership Chattanooga, Miller & Martin attorney Varsha Ghodasra says she hopes to make new friends with people she might not otherwise meet.
Her goals beyond the class extend to collaborating with community leaders to find resolutions to local problems and continue to make Chattanooga a place where businesses want to be based and people want to live.
“In doing so, I hope to contribute to making Chattanooga an even better city for my children to grow up in than it is now,” Ghodasra says.
Leadership Chattanooga is a program of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce. It enables class members to connect with the local community while learning about leadership.
Through monthly sessions, education-related projects, police ride-alongs and more, participants graduate with a greater understanding of Chattanooga’s strengths and challenges and how they can be part of solutions.
Ghodasra is a Memphis native and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Georgia Law School. She attended the University of Pennsylvania for her third year of law school as a visiting student.
Following college, Ghodasra worked as a legal assistant at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City for two years. Next, she interned at the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee’s Nashville office while attending law school.
Ghodasra also interned at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the Delaware Court of Chancery in Wilmington.
After law school, Ghodasra worked as a transactional associate attorney at Kirkland & Ellis in New York City and Chicago before moving to Chattanooga three years ago. She is currently a corporate associate attorney at Miller & Martin.
Ghodasra has worked on a number of high-profile legal matters, including large initial public offerings for clients, multibillion-dollar mergers, an investigation into money laundering by multiple New York-based banks and a successful case representing Asian-American police officers in an employment discrimination lawsuit.
This year, Ghodasra was a participant in the inaugural class of the Community Foundation’s WE Project, which focused on making female participants into more intentional philanthropists and community leaders.
“I was truly proud to be a part of such a wonderful, accomplished group of women,” she says.
Leadership Chattanooga launches in August with an orientation and two-day retreat, with monthly sessions beginning in September and culminating with a graduation in May 2020.
“Leadership Chattanooga is growing more diverse each year, representing the growing diversity of our community,” says Diane Parks, Chamber director of leadership and community development.
“Our goal is for the class to reflect the makeup of our community. This group of bright, accomplished professionals will grow exponentially from the Leadership Chattanooga experience and we look forward to a great year of learning from each other.”