MCCA’S 14TH
ANNUAL
advocates for diversity and inclusion leave the GC ranks, it hurts,” says Joseph K. West, president and CEO of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, which conducts the annual GC survey. “But people like that tend to remain active in the eff ort to increase the ranks of minor- ity and women legal leaders.” Furthermore, departures from Fortune® 500 law offi ces
aren’t necessarily permanent ones. Look no further than the examples of Larry T ompson and Ivan K. Fong. T ompson is back as general counsel at PepsiCo (43),
and Fong now holds the top in-house position at 3M (101), the maker of offi ce supplies and personal care and household products. Formerly Cardinal Health’s GC, Fong was the chief legal offi cer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during President Obama’s fi rst term. Fong and T ompson are among the 48 minorities—three
THE NUMBER OF FORTUNE®500 COMPANIES EMPLOYING GENERAL COUNSEL OF COLOR HAS INCHED UP FROM A YEAR AGO, WITH MINORITY MEN FUELING MUCH OF THE GROWTH. Yet as one example of a widening disparity among
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racial groups, Asian American women remain barely rep- resented among corporate America’s chief legal advisers. T ese are among the early fi ndings of this year’s
MCCA general counsel survey. Such trends also consti- tute part of a greater body of evidence suggesting that the answers are anything but simple when examining how minorities are faring in terms of getting hired or pro- moted to top in-house jobs. Indeed, the 48 minorities steering the legal helm of
Fortune® 500 companies this year are doing so at a time during which other, long-tenured GCs of color are giving up the reins to either retire or pursue avenues outside the corporate landscape. Take, for instance, the latest career move by Michele
Coleman Mayes, a widely known champion for diversity. Mayes held leadership positions at Unisys and Colgate-
Palmolive before becoming general counsel of Pitney Bowes and eventually, of Allstate. She co-authored a book, Courageous Counsel, encouraging women and minorities to aim for senior-level jobs in the legal profession. Mayes is now GC of the New York Public Library. Other departures from the Fortune® 500 include
regulars from previous MCCA surveys, such as Charles Tanabe of Liberty Interactive and James Jenkins of Deere. Both men retired after more than a decade of service
apiece, as did Sempra Energy’s Javade Chaudhri. Meanwhile, Maria Pasquale left Celgene, and A.B. Cruz III left Scripps Networks Interactive in order to focus more on his responsi- bilities as a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy Reserve. “Obviously, when people with reputations as strong
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013
more than a year ago—who are currently GCs at Fortune® 500 giants. Another is Justin Choi, who, like the other two men, has appeared previously in MCCA’s survey. Formerly the chief lawyer of Andrew, a communications systems company, as well as the privately-held Trustwave Holdings, Choi now runs the law department of Anixter International (405). T is 48-member roster includes recently hired or
promoted GCs such as Rohan Weerasinghe of Citigroup (26), Ricardo Anzaldua of MetLife (40), Rachel Gonzalez of Dean Foods (217), Ivonne Cabrera of Dover (308), and Leslie Turner (384) of Hershey. T e Fortune® 500 saw a shuffl ing of addresses within
the list, too, when Paulette Dodson moved from Sara Lee to PetSmart (377), and Kim Rucker went from Avon Products to Kraft Foods Group (151). Ricardo Nuñez of HD Supply (330) and Naran Burchinow of Andersons (472) join the list because their companies advanced into the Fortune® 500 for the fi rst time or re-entered it.
BY THE NUMBERS T e breakdown by race of the 48 GCs is 25 African Americans, 13 Asian Americans, and 10 Hispanics. T ese 48 general counsel of color consist of 29 men and 19 women, compared with 27 men and 18 women a year ago. However, some of the survey fi ndings appear particu-
larly troubling when revisiting recent head counts within racial subsets. Women of Asian descent, for example, are nearly non-
existent at these Fortune® 500 in-house jobs. T is year, only two of them cracked the Fortune® 500 ranks: Marie Oh Huber of Agilent Technologies (371) and Sandra Leung of Bristol-Myers Squibb (158). Both have appeared in previous surveys. But regardless of whether the yearly list has included
them or other female Asian Americans, their head count hasn’t numbered higher than two since 2006. MCCA
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GENERAL COUNSEL
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