Claudia Zanes is not an attorney. She is a business consultant and business strategist with clients across the United States. Her expertise is financial management and her clients hire her to help them optimize and grow their businesses. She has spent over fifteen years managing the finances of Zanes Law, which is a multi-million dollar business. She continues in that role today. Claudia handles all of the firm’s banking relationships, she is the driving force behind our development programs for our frontline staff, and she still fills the role of a high level business executive at Zanes Law.
When Doug and Claudia met, Claudia was an advertising sales professional and was raising two amazing daughters. She wasn’t simply in advertising sales—she was a top salesperson in her company who outperformed 99% of her contemporaries. She won every sales award available to her within an extremely short period of time. After Claudia and Doug got married, Claudia left her job to join Doug at Zanes Law. Claudia’s role was managing the business end of the practice so that Doug could focus on representing his clients and doing the legal work. As a business executive who was not (and is not) a lawyer, her focus was the firm’s finances, marketing, and strategic growth. Claudia is a business executive whose genius is optimizing and growing a business, and she put that knowledge to work at Zanes Law beginning in 2003. As the firm grew, she ascended to the role of Chief Executive Officer. During that period, the firm grew from being a typical, small law firm to being a large, financially successful business that served both its clients and employees well. In 2015 she surrendered her title as CEO because of the legal industry’s lack of vision regarding the titles that non-lawyer business professionals carry. But she continues to provide much of the same expertise to Zanes Law on a daily basis.
Claudia’s business acumen has been instrumental in helping Zanes Law grow from a startup in 2003 to a multi-million dollar company that now employs approximately 50 people, and she is just getting started. Claudia is such an accomplished businesswoman that in 2013 Inside Tucson Business named her one of their 2013 Women of Influence. The following year, the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named Claudia its 2014 Business Woman of the Year, which is the most significant business award in Tucson. That same year, nationally recognized speaker and consultant Doreen Rainey chose Claudia as her company’s RADICAL Entrepreneur Award recipient. Claudia was selected for this award from a national group of female entrepreneurs. Finally, Claudia received the 2014 Female Entrepreneur of the Year award (a national honor) from the Stevie Awards, i.e., the American Business Awards. Claudia has spoken at Harvard University, the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, and the Hispanic Women’s Organization’s Annual Conference in Phoenix. She has also spoken at the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Head Over Heels Southern Arizona Women’s Business Conference.
Currently, Zanes Law continues to benefit from Claudia’s skills as a business consultant and a business strategist. She spends much of her time problem-solving operational issues and is an integral part of developing and implementing the organization’s business strategies. In addition to these responsibilities, she runs Claudia Zanes Companies, which is her own business consulting company where she is an angel investor, business strategist, and helps business owners both optimize their successful businesses and turn around their failing businesses.
Claudia has spoken at: