Chris Cavallo – Chevron

Chris Cavallo plans her calendar with the precision of a securities filing and the curiosity of a scientist scanning the sky. As chief corporate and securities counsel for Chevron, she operates in one of the most complex regulatory environments in business. Outside of work, she and her husband map their travel around total solar eclipses, chasing narrow paths of darkness across continents and joining a tight-knit global community that treats celestial events like shared milestones.

Chris Cavallo | Chevron | Chief Corporate and Securities Counsel

That blend of rigor and wonder defines both her legal career and her personal life. It also reflects how she approaches leadership inside a premier energy company that operates at a global scale and under constant public scrutiny.

Finding a path from engineering to corporate law

Cavallo once assumed she would follow her father into engineering. Technical problem-solving and STEM skills appealed to her early, and for a time, she imagined a future in patent law that would connect science and legal analysis. Her direction shifted as she became more interested in how businesses are structured, financed, acquired, and governed. Corporate law, not litigation or patents, became the better fit.

She earned her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law and began her career in private practice with Akin, working in both their Dallas and Washington, D.C. offices. The timing placed her in the middle of an intense deal cycle before the early 2000s downturn. The pace was demanding and immersive, giving her real exposure to transactions, securities work, governance issues, and talented and collaborative people.

“I had the good fortune of having great, hands-on experiences and mentors every step of the way—people who believed in me,” Cavallo says.

After several years in firm practice, she moved in house, joining Teligent to focus on a single-client environment. The shift confirmed that she preferred being embedded with a business team rather than advising from the outside. A later move to California opened the door to more than 15 years of in-house practice in the tech and biotech sectors, including over 11 years with Polycom, where she primarily handled securities, M&A, and corporate governance matters.

Chevron entered her story in a practical way. She lived minutes from the company’s headquarters and passed it regularly before being recruited to join in 2016.

“Chevron’s reputation in corporate governance is unparalleled. I would drive by the headquarters campus each May and say to myself, ‘Someday, I am going to attend that annual meeting!’” she recalls.

The cultural and operational fit clicked quickly, expanding her scope to global-scale corporate and securities law work and enterprise governance leadership.

Leading securities & governance at a global scale

Chevron is one of the world’s leading integrated energy companies that believes affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy is essential to enabling human progress. Chevron produces crude oil and natural gas; manufactures transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and additives; and develops technologies that enhance its business and the industry. As a publicly traded company with worldwide assets and investors, it operates under extensive disclosure and governance requirements across jurisdictions.

Cavallo now leads the corporate and securities law function and serves on the company’s Corporate Governance leadership team. Her team supports Chevron’s strategic initiatives and provides advice relating to securities law, public debt offerings, corporate transactions, regulatory developments, public reporting, Board governance, and special projects, to name some of the myriad issues and activities she and her team touch each day.

“We consider ourselves thought leaders in this space. There are no egos, and we get the work done,” Cavallo says.

The role requires constant coordination with accounting, finance, treasury, investor relations, sustainability reporting, corporate affairs, human resources, and executive leadership. Disclosure controls and governance processes evolve with rule changes and market expectations. Cavallo describes the work as strategic, technical, and collaborative, with success tied to cross-functional trust.

Her team is also deeply involved in major transactions, including the company’s $48 billion acquisition of Hess Corporation, a multi-year effort that required sustained coordination across business, legal and finance teams.

“Hess was a big transaction for us, taking almost two years to close, and we handled everything from Board governance to communications and disclosures to stock purchases to the closing mechanics,” Cavallo says.

Beyond the closing of the Hess transaction, integration work continues, and her team now takes an active role in providing legal and governance advice for Hess Midstream LP, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

While at Chevron, Cavallo has also had the great fortune to work with elite securities law and governance practitioners at marquis law firms such as Paul, Weiss, Skadden, and Gibson Dunn.

“The Paul, Weiss team worked with us hand in glove, as part of one team, in bringing our 21-month journey to acquire Hess Corporation to fruition. We couldn’t have done it without their valued partnership,” she says. “All our outside law firm partnerships are simply stellar. We value smart, collaborative legal partners, rooted in a shared respect for one another, who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work together to help us achieve our objectives.”

Alongside her transactional, governance, and disclosure responsibilities, Cavallo and her colleagues have advised on a host of issues, including corporate restructuring, the company’s headquarters move from California to Houston, and evolving sustainability disclosures under both mandatory and voluntary frameworks. The variety of responsibilities and evolving legal regimes keep her practice at Chevron both strategic and interesting, with opportunities to influence outcomes.

Chevron’s Corporate Governance team was recognized as Best Governance Team – Large Cap by Governance Intelligence in November 2025.

Building teams & future leaders

Team quality is central to Cavallo’s leadership approach. She emphasizes collaboration, shared work ethic, and culture fit alongside technical skill. Hiring is deliberate and interview-intensive, especially as the company recruits as part of its headquarters move from California to Texas. Cavallo looks for lawyers who align with the company’s mission and demonstrate both technical depth and humility in execution. She wants subject matter experts who are also future leaders and strong teammates, not just individual performers.

“I am very mindful of how I hire. You need subject matter strength, but you also need culture fit and leadership potential,” Cavallo says.

She credits her style to an early general counsel mentor who said his goal was to make himself “redundant” by developing and recognizing others. That idea shapes her focus on mentoring and succession. Empowering lawyers and recognizing strengths are, in her view, operational necessities for a lean legal function.

Her group strengthened communication habits through the pandemic and now operates seamlessly, whether in the office or operating in a hybrid environment, always with high performance expectations and a shared vision of success and what great looks like. Artificial intelligence is another growing priority, with legal teams evaluating tools that can improve speed and reliability in governance and disclosure workflows. She notes that AI strategy discussions are becoming more prevalent across the legal function as the company looks for efficiencies, as well as durable and secure use cases.

Giving back & looking up

Outside the office, Cavallo invests time in professional and community networks. She serves as Vice Chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s national Corporate & Securities Law Network, actively engages as a member of the Society for Corporate Governance and its working groups, and is on the board of directors of the Valley Humane Society in support of its vision, mission, and strategy.

Her most distinctive pursuit happens under open skies. Her husband is a PhD-trained astrophysicist, and together they have become dedicated eclipse chasers, planning trips around major celestial events.

“The first one [in Oregon] was such a communal experience. We got the bug and started planning trips around eclipses. It’s a fantastic way to see the world and participate in an extraordinary astronomical occurrence that unites people globally,” Cavallo says.

They have watched eclipses from multiple continents and are planning upcoming trips to Spain, Egypt, and Australia. Each gathering brings a recurring global community of enthusiasts who share data, equipment, and stories, turning brief astronomical events into lasting connections. For Cavallo, the events combine scientific precision with shared human experience, which is part of the appeal.

Live music is another outlet and a way to recharge, often influenced by her daughter’s evolving playlists and rediscovery of older artists. Concerts, travel, and service work provide a counterbalance to the intensity of securities and governance practice.

As Cavallo steps into a more externally facing leadership role, she frames her goals around stewardship and development. She aims to strengthen and evolve disclosure systems, serve as a strong ambassador for Chevron, and bring forward the next generation of governance and securities lawyers. She approaches that mission with discipline, curiosity, and a strong sense of shared purpose across her teams and professional community, and she continues to build impact year over year through people, processes, and principled and ethical leadership.