Mary Ann Dunham received the 2009 Athena award yesterday, honoring her work helping women-led businesses as an attorney with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC.

The award, given by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development at its 19th-annual luncheon held at the Westin Convention Center hotel, is awarded each year to exceptional women leaders who also serve as mentors in the community.

"I was genuinely shocked and surprised. It was a wonderful, wonderful feeling," Ms. Dunham said of the award.

Ms. Dunham, 44, already had an impressive resume. She co-chairs her firm's mergers and acquisitions practice group, assisting businesses in industries as varied as health care, technology and manufacturing.

She also chairs her law firm's women's business development committee. In 2004, she founded the women's initiatives best practices group, an organization dedicated to promoting mentor relationships among women in senior executive positions. Ms. Dunham also chairs the board of the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania, a group that works to raise awareness of social inequalities.

Finalists for the award were Shirley Anderson, owner and president, Shirley's Beauty Mark Inc.; Georgia Berner, owner and chief executive, Berner International Group; Dusty Elias Kirk, partner, Pepper Hamilton LLP; Audrey J. Murrell, associate professor and director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership, University of Pittsburgh; Terri G. Petrick, president, UPMC Passavant; and Deborah Rice, executive vice president of health services, Highmark Inc.