Tamela Merriweather is Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel at The Northern Trust Company where she is a member of the Legal Department leadership team and serves as head of the Global Capital Markets Legal for North America, focusing on securities finance, repo, foreign exchange and derivatives. Tamela also advises on significant domestic and global prudential regulatory matters.

As a leader in the Securities Finance industry, Tamela serves on several committees and councils, including the founding board of ISLA Americas. Tamela previously served on the RMA Securities Lending Council, chaired its Legal, Tax, and Regulatory Subcommittee, and co-chaired the 35th Annual RMA Conference on Securities Finance and Collateral Management.

Tamela’s leadership roles also extend to the legal industry where she serves on the executive committee of the board of directors of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) and the executive committee of the SIFMA Compliance & Legal Society.

Tamela’s honors and awards include receiving Markets Media Group’s 2023 Women in Finance (U.S.) Award for Excellence in Legal and NAWL’s 2019 Virginia S. Mueller Outstanding Member Award. Tamela has also completed McKinsey & Company’s Black Executive Leadership Program and Corporate Leadership Center’s Leading Women Executives program.

Prior to joining Northern Trust, Tamela practiced law in the Corporate and Securities Group at Mayer Brown and clerked for the Hon. Justice Alan Page (Ret.) and Hon. Justice Helen Meyer (Ret.) of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Tamela graduated with honors from Spelman College and the University of Minnesota Law School and is admitted to practice in Illinois.