Innovative Legal Leadership

Step out of your comfort zone and you will be able to handle a remarkable range of issues.

The career of Tom Moriarty is a testament to that.

Early on, he accepted the risk of leaving a big law firm to join a smaller one. His goal was to develop professional skills that would pay dividends later on.

At Merck, Mako Health, and CVS Health, where he’s currently the Executive Vice President, Chief Policy and External Affairs Officer and General Counsel, he continuously took on diverse roles, often without much previous experience.

What he did have was a growth mindset, and the courage to venture outside of his wheelhouse.

The result: A long and distinguished professional life that has revolved around the intersection between law, policy and regulation.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Navigating the interplay between law, policy and regulation

- Strategies for brand reputation management

- Playing a central role in COVID-19 testing and the vaccine rollout

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform.

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In a special Thanksgiving episode, host Jim Delkousis shares a compilation of insightful thoughts our guests have had on the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Our guests talk about the importance of inclusion, of bias awareness, of leveraging data to enhance DEI efforts, and of diversity of thought.

So, this Thanksgiving, sit back and listen in to what diversity, equity and inclusion means to our guests and their organizations, and what we can do as an industry to continue moving forward towards a more diverse, equitable and inclusive future.

Featuring quotes from:

- Harvey Anderson - Chief Legal Officer at HP

- Sabine Chalmers - Group General Counsel at BT

- Ann Kappler - Executive Vice President & General Counsel at Prudential Financial

- Phyllis Harris - Chief General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer at American Red Cross

- Rishi Varma - General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at HPE

- Darren Zeidel - Executive Vice President & General Counsel at Aon

- Vanessa Sutherland - Chief Legal Officer at Norfolk Southern Corporation

- Vanessa Watson - Senior Vice President & Assistant General Counsel at Mastercard

- Akshay Verma - Director & Head of Legal Ops at Meta

- Leslie D. Davis - CEO of NAMWOLF

- Bruce Byrd - Executive Vice President & General Counsel at Palo Alto Networks

- Tom O’Neill - Partner at Jenner & Block and previously Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Exelon

- Louise Pentland - Executive Vice President & Chief Business Affairs and Legal Officer at PayPal

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

Bindu Cudjoe has spun a passion for transactions and deal-making into a rewarding career in the banking industry.

Starting out in private practice negotiating deals for banks, she later transitioned in house joining BMO Bank in a variety of roles. Today, she is the Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Canadian Western Bank.

Tapped as a finalist for Female Trailblazer of the Year by Canadian Lawyer Magazine and named a Leading Lawyer Under 40 by Lexpert, she is known for a curiosity and optimism she brings to the legal function.

It’s a dynamic combination that energizes those who work with her and imbues collaborative efforts with an unbridled sense of creativity.

We discuss:

- Why legal should aim for incremental innovation rather than invention

- Embracing curiosity and optimism

- How to foster the right attitude toward risk taking

- Building an educational program for female lawyers looking to advance their careers

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

The story of Caroline Tsai begins on a chicken farm 40 miles outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

When she turned 5, her family traded in a life devoted to 20,000 chickens for a life in the big apple. Now Asian-American, her parents had but one expectation for her: become a doctor.

It turned out that fate had other plans. Upon taking her first political science class, Caroline became enamored with the idea of going into law.

Following tenures at both Bank of America and BMO Financial Group, she became the Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary at Western Union, where she is committed to fostering innovation in the fintech industry and mentoring the next generation of Asian-American lawyers.

We discuss: 

- What law schools can learn from business schools

- The importance of stretching yourself

- How the legal function helps drive innovation, especially in Fintech

- Paying it forward through DEI initiatives and mentoring the next generation

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

Shanti Ariker knows tech. The majority of her career has been spent working in the tech sector for companies like Twilio , Autodesk , and Salesforce , selling everything from hardware to software, and from licensing to subscriptions. 

She now works at Zendesk as the SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. 

This wasn’t the roadmap she had in mind at the start, but all the stops along her career path have led to where she is today.

Her advice to others: Don’t stay on your path just because you think you’re supposed to. Pay attention to unexpected opportunities when they crop up; they might just lead you to where you’re meant to be.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Tips for transparently managing others

- Finding a “Personal Board of Directors” to help guide your career

- The importance of understanding the budgeting and planning process

- Strategies for scaling a global team

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

Early on in his legal career at Novartis , Maurus Schreyvogel encountered a frustrating obstacle. The legal team had no tools, no technology, no access to knowledge, and consequently, they found themselves reinventing the wheel over and over. 

It was so frustrating, in fact, that he was prepared to leave the company. Instead, he was presented with a mission that convinced him to stay: Establish transparency and bring about positive operational change within legal.

He has remained at Novartis ever since. In his current capacity of Chief Legal Innovation Officer, he is working to set the vision for how law can help society operate more equitably in the future. 

We discuss:

- Auditing the legal function to bring about operational change

- Focusing on value rather than cost

- Legal’s role in the digital transformation journey

- Transforming into collaborators instead of counselors

- Increasing access to law for all

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

For Jennifer Hightower , there’s nothing more essential than mentorship. In fact, she credits her ascent to the role of SVP and GC at Cox Communications to the amazing mentors and diverse relationships she cultivated along the way.

From her time as an insurance defense attorney to her time working at BellSouth and Cox Communications in the early days of telecom law, these mentors provided her with experience, guidance, and the motivation to keep growing.

Today, she prioritizes this tradition of mentorship with the next generation.

In this episode, we discuss:

- Getting in on the ground floor of telecom law

- Taking over the GC role in a pandemic

- Initiatives that increase collaboration and trust across the legal team

- The transfer of knowledge in a mentor/mentee relationship

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

There’s a benefit to seeing the law from multiple different perspectives: it gives you an uncanny ability to understand how other people view an issue and what their definition of winning is.

Daniel Goldstein credits his suc cess as a lawyer and as a businessperson to his exposure to diverse perspectives. He has seen the world from the perspective of a federal judge as a clerk, from the perspective of a private party hiring a lawyer, from the perspective of the government with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and from the perspective of an in-house lawyer.

Currently, he is the EVP and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Pitney Bowes , where he leverages the hard-earned wisdom from those different perspectives to advise the business.

In this episode, we discuss:

- The immense benefit of having multiple perspectives on the law

- Managing risk for a 100+ year old company

- Partnering effectively with law firms

- How the GC role will change over the next 10 years

- Learning how to fail

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

Debra Counsell followed an unusual career path to her current role as Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary at BlueScope Steel . 

Her time with DLA Piper and Clifford Chance took her from the crumbling sidewalks of Hanoi, Vietnam, to Africa, the Middle East, and Paris, France. The broad range of thorny legal issues she encountered during this period were great preparation for her transition in-house to a GC role.

In this episode, she shares the challenges, the wins, and the lessons she learned along the way.

 

Topics covered:

- How an unusual career path prepared her for in-house work

- Lessons from transitioning to in-house and leadership roles

- Empowering her team to be enablers and owners in the business

- How hybrid work may affect the development of junior lawyers

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify, or an y podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

Samantha Wellington entered into inter national corporate law because it was a fascinating way to witness how law forms culture and culture informs the law.

During 12 years at Oracle, she had the opportunity to become a member of the board of directors in Tokyo and Mumbai, where she gained insight into the impact of leadership and sponsorship.

In her current role as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary at TriNet, she is passionate about fostering a culture of compliance and analyzing the role that workplace culture has in helping a great company to thrive.

In this episode, we discuss:

- The appeal of international corporate law

- Avenues for learning the business side

- The opportunity to organize ESG initiatives

- Strategies to manage enterprise risk

- The employer’s role in the shared economy

Hear more stories by subscribing to Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any podcast platform.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.