Features January 2020

When Abby Blomstrom walked into her office at Monumental Sports & Entertainment in late September last year, her first hour was spent like any other weekday morning: checking emails, going over the day’s appointments, the usual minutaie. By 10, however, Blomstrom was switching gears. She met with the executive team to discuss and prepare for […]

These days, aspiring artists needn’t live in a garret (or always go hungry) to stick to their craft. Need proof? Look no further than Saatchi Art, a website that connects a community of more than 100,000 emerging artists from 100 countries to a global network of art buyers. It’s a new marketplace medium with millions […]

For Adeline Park, bringing an acquisition to completion is as much an art form as it is a science. Which is why, long before any deals are inked, she and her hand-picked team set off on an intensive acquisition process—one where people skills and creativity are equally critical. Not only does the team sit down […]

With every challenge there can be opportunity, and Ajay Ayyappan could see both in December 2018 upon being promoted to general counsel and senior vice president at operations management and analytics solutions company EXL. A member of the legal team since 2007, Ayyappan was used to what could be a changing office environment, but one […]

It was a cutting-edge telecommunications company in every aspect but one, that being its position of in-house legal counsel had gone unfilled for over a decade. Which was becoming an issue as DZS—DASAN Zhone Solutions—sought to expand its global footprint in the fast-evolving and highly competitive industry of designing and manufacturing broadband access technology and […]

General counsel and vice president of BMO Harris Financial Advisors since October 2015, Amanda Demas recalls how with a previous firm she witnessed an aggressive middle-aged son bringing his very elderly mother into an office and practically strong-arming her into restructuring her portfolio to his favor. “Prior to then, his mother was always on top […]

Even salt, the rudimentary staple, can become stale. That goes not just for the condiment—but the company that sells it, too, says Chad Walker. Brands, like anything else, must be nurtured, says the general counsel and chief compliance officer for the iconic Morton Salt company—you know, the one in the round blue container emblazoned with […]

To paraphrase a popular adage, you can take the man out of Kentucky, but you can’t take Kentucky out of the man. The pull of his roots was so powerful, in fact, that after nearly 25 years at venerated D.C. law firm Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells)—where Chief Justice John Roberts once practiced—Chris Schindler […]

Real estate law being Christopher Moles’ stock in trade, he had minimal experience on the mergers-and-acquisitions front in 2014. That necessitated some fast learning, as his employer of the previous four years—a then modest but ambitious Silicon Valley brokerage house—had agreed to be absorbed by an industry heavyweight. There were no guarantees that the then […]

Broadway Technology had been making its mark by building intelligent trading systems for some of the world’s leading financial institutions, but was ringing up big outside legal costs as its business model and the industry itself were becoming more sophisticated. Finally in early 2013 the company committed to bringing its legal expertise in-house, welcoming Claudia […]