T ey said I needed to change jobs.” T ey off ered her the general counsel role at First Data, the company’s information services subsidiary in Denver and Omaha, Nebraska. Parent hesitated, thinking this looked like a risky lateral move to a non-core business. But Gerstner countered: “Now you’re an expert. You need to broaden your horizons.” Parent believes that had she not taken the First Data job, she would not be general counsel of American Express today. T ose three years at First Data would also give Parent
more confi dence to take on tough, risky assignments and provided her with another risk infl ection point. While she could have stayed at First Data after it went public in 1992, she instead accepted American Express’s off er to move back to headquarters as deputy general counsel—just as the com- pany was dealing with a soured Shearson investment in the bankrupt insurer First Capital. “It was a hot-potato project
that nobody wanted to touch,” she recounts. “It was one of those deals that could have dragged down my personal fortunes with it—but it had to be done, and so I took it on.” Parent’s already shining image went brilliant. Praising her “pluck” for stepping up and managing such a tough assign- ment, CEO Harvey Golub asked her to be general counsel.
Early-Mover Advantages Christine Edwards used risk as an advancement strategy— not only to resolve career infl ection points, but also to create career infl ection points. Edwards gave her career early traction with some calcu-
lated—but still risky—opening gambits. While pursuing an English degree at the University of Maryland, she worked part time at Sears, Roebuck and Co. in Washington, D.C. After she graduated in 1974, she joined the company’s credit
GC Succession at Pitney Bowes: Postmaster Generals 36
PERHAPS SURPRISINGLY, FORTUNE 500 WOMEN GCS INFREQUENTLY CROSS CORPORATE PATHS. In two exceptional cases, though, a trio of women served as successive general counsel—at Gap Inc. (see page 38), and at global mailstream technology company Pitney Bowes. Invited by a recruiter, Sara Moss visited Pitney
Bowes in 1996 thinking it would be good business development for her law fi rm. Instead, she became general counsel, successfully defending two multimil- lion dollar cases right out of the gate. It was a “fabu- lous” experience—until 9/11. As she remembers it, “I was in Connecticut; the awful separation from my kids that day crystallized my need to be back in New York.” Moss knew exactly who would replace her—Michele
Coleman Mayes. “I fi rst met Sara when, as a law fi rm partner, she pitched business to us at Colgate- Palmolive,” recalls Mayes. “Several years passed before we saw each other again, mainly at networking events, and while we never worked together, we had real chemistry. It was a bond based on similar values and life experiences.” Moss was so sure, in fact, that she told then Pitney Bowes CEO Mike Critelli not to put the GC position out for search. “I put Michele’s name on top of that list,” says Moss. Then chasing the general counsel spot at Colgate-
Palmolive, Mayes realized that the odds of the job opening up were pretty slim—so she interviewed with Pitney Bowes, won the job, and left, with Moss provid- ing transitional support.
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JULY/AUGUST 2011 “Sara left a great legacy, but I wanted to create my
own path,” says Mayes, who did that over the next four years, establishing above all else strong working trust and relationships with her team. Then came the execu- tive recruiter call beckoning her to Allstate Insurance, where she now holds the GC post. Replacing her was former Army Captain Vicki
O’Meara, a public service-driven legal leader whose early career experiences included working on the Superfund legislation while in the Pentagon and involvement with the Iran-Contra hearings while in the White House Counsel’s Offi ce. Following subsequent postings as deputy GC for the EPA and assistant AG for the DoJ, O’Meara led the global environmental practice group at Jones Day before fi rst becoming GC, and then president of U.S. supply chain solutions for Ryder Systems Inc. Recruited by Pitney Bowes for her business and
regulatory acumen, O’Meara took over as general counsel in 2008, and has since been promoted to executive vice president and president of the com- pany’s management services and government and postal affairs. “I did not follow a linear course towards becoming general counsel,” says O’Meara, refl ecting on her global regulatory work and other successes at Pitney Bowes, “but I consider it among the best jobs going. You have the opportunity to practice at the highest level, there’s the excitement of building and changing things, and you are afforded a signifi cant role in the company’s strategy and success.”
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