OUR ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
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Jennifer Black Sherman
Vice President-Global Procurement LegalBank of America
Jennifer works for Bank of America’s Global Procurement Legal team located in Charlotte, NC. She is responsible for the legal department’s end to end procurement engagements with third party vendors. She negotiates agreements at various levels of complexity in order to minimize risk and achieve measurable cost savings. Jennifer is a licensed Attorney with over sixteen years of experience in law firms, trial courts, as well as, lead the legal department and the procurement functions for a federally funded not for profit agency.
Education:
Quinnipiac University School of Law / Juris DoctorSacred Heart University / Bachelor of Science, Criminal Justice
Orazio Difruscolo
Head Claims and Legal Sourcing
Swiss ReOrazio is leading Claims & Legal Sourcing global team at Swiss Re Group. He builds partnerships with clients, colleagues and providers to increase revenues, reduce costs, mitigate risks and create new value, elevating sourcing beyond the traditional procurement levers. Over the last two decades he studied and practiced intersections between people, process and technology also during post-merger while living in eight countries.
Recent track record includes the application of Augmented Intelligence (combining human and artificial intelligence/machine learning), predictive analytics, product development and winning new business as part of cross-functional teams
Previous positions held at: Deutsche Bank
Education:Bocconi University | Bachelor of Science, Business Administration; Master of Science (Hons), Organisation & IT systems
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore | PhD, Management
Adrienne Fox
Director, Global Procurement Professional Services: Legal Services & Payment Channels
Novartis
Adrienne works in the Novartis Global Procurement organization, located in East Hanover, NJ. She is responsible for leading Legal Procurement strategy, business partnering and sourcing program management, with a current focus on Intellectual Property spend. In her 7 years of legal procurement experience, she has partnered with Legal Operations on a variety of initiatives to enhance the way the company engages and manages outside counsel. She has played a key role in enhancing relationships with law firms and legal vendors by applying procurement principles within the legal sector. Her work on the Preferred Panel Firm Program, matter scoping, pricing strategies and use of legal sourcing technology has resulted in culture change, cost efficiencies and value delivery. She is passionate and active in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) initiatives and currently acts as co-lead of the Buying Legal Council DEIB Working Group.
In addition to her Legal Procurement role, Adrienne also leads a Payment Channels Optimization project (credit card and payment strategies). Prior to her procurement work in Legal, Adrienne has managed various indirect procurement categories and been employed as a consultant, compliance manager and paralegal.
Education:
Fairleigh Dickinson University: M.A. Corporate and Organizational Communications / ABA Paralegal CertificateRutgers College: B.S. Administration of Justice and B.A. English
Outside Counsel Senior Manager
Salesforce
Karen joined Salesforce in 2020 and is the Senior Manager of Outside Counsel. She is primarily responsible for managing all the law firm relationships with a focus on the global preferred panel. Karen has over a decade of legal operations experience, and throughout her career she managed a number of initiatives including implementation of three different ebilling systems.
Prior to Salesforce, she was at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., where she helped to create the Outside Counsel Management program and legal operations function.
Education: Fort Hays State University | Bachelors of Science, Biology
Stanislav Gejdos
Category Manager, Legal Services
Syngenta
Stanislav joined Syngenta in 2012. Prior to starting his Legal Procurement role in 2016, he worked in IT Procurement managing key outsourcing relationships. Stano builds effective partnerships with internal clients and providers. His main focus is on delivering sustainable savings, negotiating strategic legal contracts, increase the usage of value based billing models and to drive the SRM program with key legal providers. He is working closely with Legal Operations to enhance data analytics to drive better sourcing decisions.
Previous positions held at: Volkswagen, Hewlett-Packard
Education:
University of Economics in Bratislava | Master's degree
Andy Krebs
Senior Director, Head of Legal Operations
Twilio
Strategic and innovative legal industry leader, known for leading, motivating, and gaining consensus in large cross-functional teams and being adept at managing in complex, ambiguous environments. Problem solver with a record of employing innovative processes and solutions to solve challenging problems and developing world class programs. Experienced at building and leading high performing teams with deep operational expertise across multiple business functions. Effective communicator and presenter who influences externally and internally across levels.
Previous positions held at: Intel
Education:
Defiance College | Bachelor of Science, Accounting and Criminal Justice
University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business | MBA in International Business and MIS
Bernardine Lai
Director, Outside Counsel Relationships
U.S. Bank
Bernardine leads the strategic development of U.S. Bank’s relationships with law firms. She started her career as a corporate lawyer in private practice and has worked in-house for Vodafone in Tokyo and Deutsche Telekom/Siemens in Beijing. Before joining U.S. Bank, Bernardine helped pioneer an innovative “client team chief-of-staff” role at Faegre Drinker to strengthen every facet of strategic client relationships, including business development, DEI, billing, pricing, innovative delivery of legal services, and competitive RFPs. She joined the U.S. Bank Legal Operations Team in November 2021 to bring this deep relationship focus to the client side of the table.
Education:
University of Sydney, Australia | LL.M (Hons), B.Ec/LL.B
Admissions: NY, NH, Hong Kong, England & Wales, NSW
Senior Manager, Global Legal Procurement
GSK
Jon leads the Global Legal Services category at GSK and has been with the company since 2008. Prior to starting his legal role in 2015, he managed several categories across direct, indirect and operational roles. Jon is responsible for procurement’s engagement with external law firms and ancillary service providers and is the procurement lead for GSK’s award winning OCSI program.
Education:
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill | BA Management/Public Policy
Global Category Manager Legal Services
NovartisAndie is a seasoned professional experienced in indirect procurement in complex and global organizations. She has lived and worked in multiple countries and industries, leading cross-functional teams in sourcing and process improvement projects.Previous positions held: Philips Electronics, Guardian Life Insurance, PfizerEducation:
University of Macau | BA in Marketing
University of Groningen | MSc in International Business
Director, Category, Legal Services
Johnson & JohnsonPaul leads the Global Legal Services category team at J&J, with responsibility for procurement’s engagement with external vendors and the implementation of the function’s strategic vision in the legal space. He has driven strategic sourcing engagements and procurement best-value outcomes across many direct material and indirect service categories and led a global program for evaluating the financial health of key vendors and driving risk mitigation efforts where necessary.Education:
Millersville University of Pennsylvania | Bachelor of Arts, Economics (Quantitative)
Strategic Sourcing Manager – Legal & Global Compliance Category
Boston Scientific Corporation
Kristina joined the indirect sourcing team at BSC in 2018. In her first year with the company, she partnered with Legal Operations to establish BSC’s Preferred Provider Network (PPN), a firm and vendor panel. Since then, she has continued building strong relationships throughout the organization, with outside counsel, and with vendors. Leveraging these partnerships, she has become a trusted advisor to her stakeholders, leading and supporting countless projects to maximize efficiency and optimize spend for the Legal and Global Compliance departments. Prior to joining BSC, she worked in real estate and finance before ultimately transitioning into sourcing.
Previous position: Staples, Inc.
Education:
Dartmouth College | Bachelor of Arts, Economics
Sr. Manager Litigation Operations
Johnson & Johnson
Milly joined Johnson & Johnson's law department beginning of 2022 as a Senior manager Litigation Operation. Before this role, Milly spent her time in J&J in various procurement categories, including Legal services Sourcing Manager. In her current position, Milly is a primary point of contact on Procurement partnerships with a focus on strategic cost containment efforts and operational efficiencies. She has led several complex RFPs, executed Alternative fee arrangements for mass tort litigation, and implemented technology tools in Invoice review and DE&I workstreams.
Education
Drexel University, PA I MBA - Marketing
Sourcing Manager Marketing & Legal Services
Lloyds Banking Group
Emily joined Lloyds in 2009 and welcomes change and new challenges having covered a diverse range of supply market roles and categories. She has led numerous Legal Panel reviews and new initiatives, including the implementation of a legal ebilling system and a legal invoice review pilot.
Previous Positions Held: Barclays, Alcatel-Lucent and Intel Corporation
Long standing business mentor & volunteer for various international charities
Education:
Royal Holloway University of London | Bachelor of Arts, German, French & ComputingWharton, University of Pennsylvania | Marketing Management
Vice President Senior Sourcing Manager, Legal Services | Global Procurement
Deutsche Bank
Matt has 15 years’ experience in legal, insurance and professional services sourcing. He has worked at Citigroup, AIG, AXA XL and Deutsche Bank. Matt has conducted hundreds of competitive sourcing events, using e-sourcing tools to run RFxs and Reverse Auctions and has conducted direct contract and pricing negotiations with large, multinational and regional law firms and software / SaaS providers, including managing the vendor risk management process. He also has a law degree from Cardozo School of Law and spent 15 years as a financial lines insurance broker and underwriter before working in Procurement.
Education:
St. John's University, The Peter J. Tobin School of Business | BBA, InsuranceCardozo School of Law | Juris Doctor
Global Outside Counsel Operations Manager
Hearst MediaJessica Williams is the Outside Counsel Operations Manager for HEARST’s Office of General Counsel. After nearly 15 years in the legal industry, Jessica’s experience ranges from public service to boutique law firms and Fortune 100 corporate legal departments. Today, she oversees Hearst’s global outside counsel program and is responsible for all things rates and relationships.
Previous position: Liberty Mutual Insurance
Education:
Western Governors University | Bachelors in Business Management
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