Bamlango admits that he didn’t know exactly what he was in for until he started the job. He tried to prepare and anticipate the role, but the reality is different than what he imagined, he says. He has a particularly strategic role, which is bolstered by his close relationship with the CEO.

There are three things that motivate Carol DiBattiste: challenges, people, and the mission. She found all three when she joined comScore, the media measurement and analytics company based in Reston, Virginia, in January 2017.

Naturally, patents figure prominently into the business strategy, and Haas’ legal department involves itself more and more in strategic discussions to be able to focus on patents that deliver business solutions.

Confidence can be an asset. Imagine being confident enough to turn down a plum post-clerkship signing bonus, move to a foreign country with a loose grasp of the local culture and languages, and be the only overseas attorney interviewing for the first lawyer position for a hot Singaporean startup.

Four years ago, in 2014, Yusuf Mohamed was at a crossroads in his career. He was planning to join a law firm for the first time when he saw a LinkedIn post: Tesla, Inc. was looking for employment counsel. He decided to submit his resume, thinking it was a moonshot. At the time, Tesla had 10,000 employees and its prior employment lawyer had recently left the company.

Franklin explains that emotional intelligence was pivotal to success. “There was a huge amount of emphasis on the people side of things both during the integration planning phase and during the integration itself,” she says.

Since its inception, corporate social responsibility (CSR), has been derided as window-dressing for corporations that are eager to keep regulators off their case. Often under the purview of in-house counsel, CSR is beginning 2018 with a bang with the news that Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, sent a letter to business leaders urging them that they need to do more than make profits — they need to help their communities as well.

For the vast majority of Georgia Albert’s professional life, she has been a lawyer. One day in Düsseldorf, Germany, she got a chance to see what it was like to do something else.

“That job started me on my current path. I got more in touch with who I am and who I wanted to be,” Karas says. She thinks more women need to take that uncertain leap and not worry about where they might land.

With more than 20 years of in-house legal and business experience, including at well-known brands like Accenture and Visa, Marina Gracias is relishing her relatively new role as general counsel and corporate secretary of Varo Money.

Eleanor Lacey looks to impact her company in more ways than just legal. She considers herself a strong advocate for family friendly policies. After working in-house for over 30 years, she reflected on why she loves being a general counsel.

It was a comfortable spring day on March 23, 2017, when Yibing Mao, Marriott's chief legal counsel for Asia Pacific, walked into the retro-chic China Club.

Amenda Makhetha is the group data privacy and compliance manager of MiX Telematics, a leading global provider of fleet and mobile asset management solutions.

The gray areas, and navigating through them, are what Patrick Kong finds most interesting about his job. As general counsel and head of compliance for Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded insurer, he is constantly looking for gray areas and figuring out the best way forward.

Today, Allison Despard is the general counsel of labor and employment in the Asia Pacific region for Honeywell International, Inc., an American conglomerate that produces all kinds of products — from home thermostats to fluorine chemicals to turbo engines — and sells them to individuals, governments, and large corporations.

Gladys Chun, who serves as general counsel for the online retailer Lazada in South East Asia, vividly remembers when her father inspired her to become a lawyer.

It’s hard to imagine someone better prepared for a generalist role in Asia than Deborah Vaughn. But she never set out with a formal plan to become Whirlpool’s chief legal officer of Asia Pacific. She says she simply moved from each position in “a natural progression.”

Who do you call when disaster strikes? If you are Lori Middlehurst, the Asia Pacific employment law director for VMware, you call your local contacts first to get the on-the-ground scoop.

Matt Nolan likes a good opportunity. He’ll rarely turn it down. That’s how he went from the 38,000-person town of Muskegon, Michigan, which is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, to the 24 million-person metropolis of Shanghai.

The ACC Australia In-house Lawyer Awards acknowledge excellence in the provision of legal services, as well as the contributions to the legal profession made by in-house lawyers working in government and business legal departments.

Matt Nolan likes a good opportunity. He’ll rarely turn it down. That’s how he went from the 38,000-person town of Muskegon, Michigan, which is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, to the 24 million-person metropolis of Shanghai. Nolan is Dow Corning’s manager of governance and compliance for Greater China.

Papanikitas was also drawn to the opportunity to join a new, lean legal team that tackles the broad range of legal challenges that Kimberly-Clark Australia encounters. He insists that every day is different because of that wide range of legal issues.

The relationship between regulatory and business lawyers can be contentious in the United States and other countries. The rapport between the two in Australia is generally more collaborative. Hillier goes as far as calling the companies she regulates “key stakeholders” that NOPSEMA is always trying to engage.

Sharon Morrisroe, the general counsel and corporate secretary for Raymond James Ltd., a national brokerage firm, is an expert on securities and the slopes.

Villa’s career is far from over. He expects to stay at Versar for many more years where he wants to continue to mentor younger lawyers, and keep an eye out for openings for people in his network.