Vanessa Finley

Vanessa (Vinnie) Finley, MBA, CAE, joined NALA – The Paralegal Association (NALA) as its Chief Executive Officer in 2019. As the CEO, she is responsible for the planning and day-to-day operations of the association, including oversight of strategic planning and implementation, membership services for its 69 Affiliated Associations and 15,000+ members in the paralegal profession, and coordinating the Board of Directors and its committees. NALA’s mission is to equip paralegals for the challenges of the future through certification, professional development, and advocacy. NALA offers the Certified Paralegal® (CP) credential, the only nationally accredited certification for paralegals, and has certified more than 20,000 paralegals since 1977.

Vinnie has been in nonprofit management and leadership for her entire career, spanning more than 30 years. She has had a primary focus on providing support to and advocacy for underrepresented groups and otherwise marginalized communities including women, people of color, immigrants, and those impacted by poverty. In addition to her paid work, Vanessa served for nearly a decade as the volunteer-elected Chair of the Missouri micro-enterprise association, the Missouri Asset Development Coalition, and was an active board member of the national micro-enterprise trade association, Association for Enterprise Opportunity.

Vinnie has dual Bachelor’s degrees in Human Development/Applied Behavioral Science and Criminology from the University of Kansas (1993). She earned her Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Leadership and Change in Human Systems from the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (2006). She received her Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential in 2020.

She and her husband of 34 years have two adult daughters, an adult foster son, and a menagerie of four-legged fur-babies, who live together in Tulsa, OK.