The Eller College Honors Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things at the 2021 Annual Women’s Tea

Jan. 18, 2022

On December 9, 2021, the undergraduate department in the Eller College of Management held its annual Women’s Tea at the Tucson Marriott University Park Hotel.

This year’s honorees were 13 women who have done extraordinary things—five of which are part of the Eller community.

The 2021 Eller honorees were:

  • Yvette-Marie Margaillan ’14 BSBA (MIS), ’15 MS MIS. Margaillan is CEO and clinical director of Autism Pediatrics—a private medical practice specializing in therapy for children with autism and developmental disorders, and strategic technology and business consulting for healthcare companies—and co-founder of Tucson Tea Company. She also serves on the board of the Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona and El Rio Health Center Foundation, is member of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, a Flinn-Brown Fellow and was recently elected as president for the Global Shapers Tucson Hub.
  • Susan Gray ’01 MBA. Gray began her career as an engineering student at Tucson Electric Power in 1994 and established herself as a collaborative, inclusive leader who inspired a culture of safety, recognition and transparency through her values-driven approach. Twenty-seven years later, Gray is now president and CEO of TEP, UniSource Energy Services and their parent company, UNS Energy Corporation.
  • Lacy Cain ’19 BS (Accounting and Entrepreneurship). Cain is the founder of Wildjoy—a brand focused on creating easy access to adventures and ‘wildjoy-inducing’ experiences for over 260,000 members across Arizona. While at Eller, she joined Chi Omega and double majored in Accounting and Entrepreneurship which is where she came up with the idea of Wildjoy. During her free time, Cain likes to create content for TikTok and be at home with her three kittens Monet, Jagger and Iris.
  • Magdalena Verdugo ’89 BSBA. Verdugo was named CEO for YWCA Southern Arizona in 2019, making her the first Latina leader in the 104-year history of the organization. Her vision is to build YWCA Southern Arizona into a premier one-stop location for bilingual integrated leadership, wellbeing, financial empowerment, workforce training and business development services in the region. As the daughter of migrant farmworkers, Verdugo’s ideals of hard work and resilience were instilled at a young age and she became the first in her family to graduate college.
  • Amy Patel. A Tucson native and true Wildcat at heart, Patel is a partner in Deloitte’s Business Tax Services practice, servicing multinational businesses, both public and private in a variety of industries including manufacturing renewable energy, semiconductors, technology, software and blockchain. Patel is also a long-time member of the board of the Boys & Girls Club of the Valley, currently serving as treasurer. She is currently board member of the Dhaliwal-Reidy School of Accountancy at the Eller College.

Following the honoree’s a group of more than 30 women who are current undergraduate students at Eller were highlighted as Eller’s Top Collegiate Women for their inspiration and drive to learn.

“We were delighted to be able to once again have our annual Women’s Tea where our students and community honorees can come together,” says Meghan Welsh, manager of leadership, marketing and events. “The stories and wisdom shared by the honorees was truly inspirational and will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on our Eller students.”