EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP to listen. You have to build a team philosophy around what you all want to get done and then you become a critical component of the success and the progress of the organization.” The more lawyers move into business roles, the more it becomes an accepted career progression. As Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe found at Duke, there’s little resistance to such moves when there’s already an established track record: “That’s been a long-settled issue here. We’re not afraid to put lawyers in business roles, because they’ve
proven that they can do the right kind of thinking and the right kind of things to be successful.” Sonya Olds Som is a partner in the Chicago office of Heidrick & Struggles, one of the country’s leading senior-level executive search and leadership consulting companies. She focuses on executing searches for general counsel/chief legal officer and other senior leadership roles within corporate legal departments and law firms across industries and geographies, as well as on executing board searches and providing diversity, equity & inclusion advisory services. She spoke to leading Black figures in Government and business on their experiences and how they see the landscape for GCs changing.
CAREER ADVICE
Building Relationships, Building a Career Despite efforts to improve diversity at a senior level, any Black lawyer navigating the upper levels of the corporate world will face challenges. By Sonya Olds Som
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S SOMEONE WHOSE CAREER RELIES on an extensive and active network – placing talented candidates in career-advancing roles and helping companies improve their performance by giving them access to a more diverse pool of talent – I see every day the importance of building and maintaining relationships. It’s something the interviewees all agreed on. Marc Howze is Group President, Lifecycle Solutions & Chief Administrative Officer at Deere & Company. He stresses the importance of fostering relationships at every stage of a career. As someone who has held multiple positions at Deere, he has built contacts in every corner of the operation, from production to sales and marketing to legal. This makes him a stronger leader and gets better results for the business. “You can take a team of disparate people and bring them together in order to solve the most important problems we have,” he explains.
MORE THAN COLLECTING CONTACTS Donald M. Remy is Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs and has previously worked in government, non-profits, law firms and business, including Fannie Mae. His varied career means he’s keenly aware that “it’s important to build real relationships, mentoring and sponsoring relationships, where you can bounce things off people, where you can engage as you grow. Because you never know when you might need advice, or someone needs you to give advice, or where you’re looking to explore a different opportunity and someone in your circle has valuable insight and relationships.” Although such relationships can pay off in surprising ways as career goals and trajectories change, they must be more than just transactional. The need to create genuine connections is core to Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary for Duke Energy, Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe: “It’s about developing relationships,
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