Medina Jett, JD, MBA

Jett is differentiated by her passion for racial equality and also by her unique perspective as a Black woman having been an attorney in private practice and in corporate law departments, a senior executive at not one, but three Fortune 100 companies, and an international business owner in one of the most white male-dominated industries – asset management.

Jett launched Integrated Compliance Solutions Group, LLC (“ICSGroup”) in 2008 at the onset of the Great Recession with nothing more than an idea, her savings and the determination to leave her mark on the financial services industry. ICSGroup provided legal and compliance services to Wall Street firms throughout the United States and Africa and earned a stellar reputation for its advocacy for diversity of the financial services industry. Jett made history by becoming the only African American woman in the entire world to own an asset management compliance firm. ICSGroup is proudly one of very few minority-owned businesses to be featured in a Harvard Business Review case study. Students around the globe now learn from Jett and her entrepreneurial journey to launch and scale her company. After 12 years as an award-winning entrepreneur, she joined a very small group of Black women to have led their companies from birth through successful acquisition.

Jett’s legal expertise, business acumen and leadership skills were honed in legal and corporate roles which led to her breaking into the senior leadership ranks at Cigna Retirement & Investment Services, Prudential Retirement and The Hartford Life Insurance Company all before the age of 40. At Cigna she was the first Black executive and also the youngest executive in the company’s history. At The Hartford, she was the first Black executive in the company’s history; and at Prudential, as with Cigna and The Hartford, she was the only Black executive on the senior management team. A champion for diversity her entire career, Jett was a founding member of the Lawyers Collaborative for Diversity in Connecticut, the Executive Sponsor for The Hartford’s company-wide Diversity & Inclusion initiative and served on hiring committees and diversity committees throughout her career. She has also been a very vocal advocate for the hiring and retention of Black lawyers and Black asset managers. She openly acknowledges that her journey should not have been filled with so many “firsts” and “onlys”.

During the pandemic, Jett was moved to launch her newest venture Jett Speaks, LLC, through which she is able to pursue her passion to inspire and empower professional women and People of Color. Jett Speaks focuses on four verticals: career development, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and diversity consulting. She shares her unique perspective of being both a Black person and a woman who has transcended barriers and mastered the corporate game. She shares the skills, strategies and unwritten corporate rules they will need to increase their value to their organization and excel in their careers.

Jett is the recipient of many awards and recognition most notably: the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty Award for her advocacy on social justice and racial equality issues; the Urban League of Southern Connecticut’s Diversity Award; the Tri-State Diversity Council’s Influential Women Award; and the Hartford Business Journal’s Top Women in Business Award. As the Alumni Speaker at the University of Connecticut’s Executive MBA Program Commencement, she recently inspired the Class of 2019 to “dream big and execute”. Having been raised in poverty in a single-parent household, Jett herself is experiencing the benefits of dreaming big and executing.

She earned a BA from Wesleyan University, a JD from Georgetown Law School, and an MBA in finance from the University of Connecticut School of Business. She is also a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program at Babson College.