Wendy L. Hufford is the founder and president of Effective Dispute Management, LLC, a dispute resolution and legal process improvement consulting firm. She is the former SVP, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Ascena Retail Group, Inc., a Fortune 500 retail company that held iconic brands such as Ann Taylor, LOFT, Justice, and Lane Bryant, where she was responsible for leading legal, compliance, risk and government affairs of the company from 2018-2020.   

She was previously chief operating officer of the legal department and VP of US litigation, risk management and human resources at Boehringer Ingelheim USA from 2015-2018. From 2010-2014, she was VP, deputy general counsel and assistant secretary of ITT Corporation. Prior to that, she was EVP and chief litigation counsel of Cardinal Health in Dublin, Ohio from 2006 to 2009. In these three roles, she generated combined savings of over US$30 million in legal department savings. Early in her career, she held in-house litigation roles at GE Consumer Finance and Credit Suisse First Boston, worked in private practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell and served as a law clerk in the Southern District Court of New York. She is a graduate of Colgate University and The Yale Law School.