National Vehicle Leasing Association

(As first published in nvla LeaseWire)

It has been a terrific year for NVLA’s Women in Leasing. After a high energy kickoff at the 2022 Annual Meeting in Tucson, we agreed to meet online and settled into a bi-monthly format.

This past May we agreed to form a Women in Leasing Committee as a part of the NVLA with the following goals:

  • Develop opportunities for women in NVLA to connect, network, and share resources and knowledge.
  • Create pathways to leadership for women within NVLA.
  • Expand, attract, and retain NVLA membership through program involvement.
  • Ensure that the diverse voices and perspectives of NVLA’s stakeholders are represented and heard within the association.

The committee agreed to have a focal point for discussion at each meeting and we adopted the topic: What is impacting your business today? Last week we had a 40-minute discussion that centered around how interest rates are impacting the members’ businesses and their views and experience with electric vehicles. We could have spent a lot more time on both of those topics—we barely got into them.

We have prepared a survey to go out to the general membership in the next few weeks so we can learn more about what Women in Leasing should be addressing, including the issues that you believe are pressing. Depending upon the results, we will adapt the issues to appear on the agenda at our next in person meeting at 12:00 pm on October 12, 2023 in Austin, TX at the Annual NVLA Meeting. We look forward to seeing everyone in person and to rekindling our acquaintance very soon in Austin!

Sloan Schickler is a partner in the commercial finance law firm, Schickler & Schickler PLLC. Schickler, a veteran vehicle leasing, finance and bank attorney and the attorneys in her firm have decades of experience representing and protecting lessors, banks, captive and independent finance companies in all facets of the vehicle leasing and financing business. She has served as the NVLA Legal and Legislative counsel since 2017 and is currently the only woman on the board of directors. Sloan can be reached at sloan.schickler@schicklerlaw.com or 212-262-5297.