CZ and Friends
CZ & Friends is a podcast about leading and evolving the legal profession amid rapid change. Hosted by Cecilia Ziniti, former General Counsel and founder/CEO of GC AI, it features candid conversations with legal and business leaders. Guests discuss building for scale, taking bold bets on technology, and leading with humanity. The show is aimed at general counsels, operators, and in-house counsel who want a front-row seat to the future of legal.
Episodes
Leading Legal Through Crisis and Global Growth with Barbara Barrilleaux, Brooks Running GC
Barbara Barrilleaux is the VP of Legal and General Counsel at Brooks Running, the performance running brand owned by Berkshire Hathaway. She leads a 15-person global legal team covering everything from IP and contracts to compliance and privacy across 50+ countries. A former competitive swimmer and former IP litigator, Barbara has guided Brooks through more than a decade of serious growth, includi
Building America’s First Digital-Only Bank as Employee #8 with Marina Gracias, Varo Bank CLO
Marina Gracias is the Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at Varo Bank, the first and only digital-only nationally chartered bank in the United States. She joined Varo as employee number eight before the company had a product in market, leaving a managing director role at Accenture to do it. Marina led the three-year process of securing a de novo bank charter through the OCC, the FDIC, and
Building Legal Ops from Scratch with Kimberly Woodward, VP and Head of Legal at OVERJET
Kim Woodward wasn't looking for a new job when Okta's sales rep reached out. She was happy at her boutique law firm, working closely with clients, and had zero interest in going in-house. But after meeting the team, believing in the mission, and learning she'd have a train buddy for the commute, she took the leap as Okta's third attorney.What followed was an 11-year journey thr
Greenfield to Gold Standard: Building Legal From Scratch with Alisha Cieslak, Gordon Food Service
Alisha Cieslak is the former Chief Legal and Risk Officer of Gordon Food Service, the North American food service distributor operating since 1897 across the U.S. and Canada. She joined in 2014 as employee number one in the legal department, when the company was already a $10 billion operation across a dozen states with no in-house lawyer, no active-matters list, no board legal reports, and no fil
The Blackberry Era of Legal AI with Tina Hwang, ClassDojo Head of Legal
Tina Hwang has a spicy take: legal compliance is table stakes. If you're building technology that parents trust with their kids, meeting the legal bar is where the conversation starts.Tina is the Head of Legal at ClassDojo, the platform connecting teachers, parents, and kids in classrooms worldwide. Before ClassDojo, she spent over a decade at Google, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Meta, building pro
Building Legal as the Company's Air Traffic Control with Ekumene Lysonge, NerdWallet CLO
Ekumene Lysonge is the Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary at NerdWallet, where he leads a combined Trust and Safety organization of 34 people spanning legal, security, compliance, and privacy across a public fintech platform that serves 25 million+ customers a month. With operational experience across corporate America before legal leadership, he credits that time as a business operator w
"Yes If" Thinking: Sharon Johnson of MODE Global on AI, Logistics and Legal Leadership
Sharon Johnson took a winding path to the GC seat. Before law school, she worked in marketing, sales, project management, and contract management at Verizon, and she credits that experience with shaping how she leads legal today. As Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer at MODE Global, she runs a team of six lawyers across a $3 billion logistics business, with 100%
The GC-to-Board Playbook, with Executive Coach Anne Marie Segal
Anne Marie Segal spent 15 years as an attorney - at White and Case, a hedge and private equity fund, and her own firm - before becoming an executive coach to general counsel and senior executives across six continents. She knows what it takes to make the leap, and what holds most lawyers back from making it.In this episode, Cecilia and Anne Marie get into the psychology behind lawyer identity, why
The Kanye Clause, Taylor Swift IP, and AI: Mary Ambacher of EverQuote and Lauren Anderson of Wayfair
What does it look like to build a legal team from first principles in 2025, with AI at the center from day one?Cecilia sits down with Mary Ambacher, Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary at EverQuote, and Lauren Anderson, Senior Counsel at Wayfair, to talk through exactly that. Mary just started a new GC role after eight years at Wayfair and walked in to find the calculus for he
Risk, Calibration, and 5,000 Bad Haircut Lawsuits with David Schellhase, 3x GC and Okta Board Member
David Schellhase has been general counsel at three public companies - Salesforce, Groupon, and Slack - and he's learned that great in-house lawyering is less about knowing every law and more about knowing your company's risk appetite cold. In this episode of CZ and Friends, David joins Cecilia to share what three decades in Silicon Valley taught him about risk, prioritization, and when t
The End of the Billable Hour with Bjarne Tellmann, CEO of FjordStream Advisors
Bjarne Tellmann spent 30 years as a general counsel at Haleon, Pearson, Coca-Cola, and Aramco. Now, as CEO of FjordStream Advisors and author of "Law in the Era of AI" (Wiley), he argues that the disruption of the law firm model will not come from startups - it will come from clients.In this episode of CZ and Friends, Cecilia Ziniti joins Bjarne to unpack what he saw from the inside of s
Legal Ops at Scale: Sruthi Kosuri and Cindy Prabhakar of Marvell Technology
How does a legal operations team at a global semiconductor company cut contract request time by 73%, earn a seat at the CLO's staff table, and build board-level analytics, all while keeping pace with AI?In this episode of CZ and Friends, Cecilia Ziniti sits down with Sruthi Kosuri and Cindy Prabhakar from the legal operations team at Marvell Technology, an $8 billion company powering the infr
Replace Me: Jimmy Toy of Articore Group on AI, Copyright, and the Future of Legal
What if the best thing a lawyer could do is figure out how to make themselves obsolete?Jimmy Toy, Chief Legal Officer at Articore Group (the company behind Redbubble and TeePublic), has been using AI and machine learning in legal work for over 10 years. In this episode of CZ and Friends, Jimmy joins host Cecilia Ziniti to share why the future of legal is not about working faster with AI, but about
Inside Real Estate Law: Nicole Komin & Danielle Shainbrown hosted by Laurel Palluzi
Nicole Komin and Danielle Shainbrown co-founded two companies together out of Buffalo, New York: Bellwether Advisors, a real estate consulting and advisory practice, and Shainbrown Komin PLLC, a law firm. They launched both in 2022 and have been running them side by side ever since.Their paths to getting there could not be more different. Nicole came up through public interest work, elder law, and
AI Governance and Why Legal Bottlenecks Start Upstream with Rachel Harris of Suzy
Rachel Harris, General Counsel and AI Governance & Privacy Officer at Suzy, joins Cecilia to talk about what it takes to be a solo GC at a high-growth AI startup.Rachel's career started in an unlikely place: plaintiff-side pharmaceutical MDL litigation in St. Louis, where she learned to work fast, take big bets, and operate alongside founders who mortgaged their homes to finance cases. Th
Crypto Law, AI, and Legal Leadership with Molly Abraham of Coinbase
Molly Abraham, VP of Legal at Coinbase, joins Cecilia to talk about what it takes to build and lead a 90-person legal team through one of the most scrutinized regulatory periods in tech history.Molly started as a chemical engineer at Procter and Gamble, taught the LSAT at night to pay for law school, and went on to Wachtell Lipton before moving in-house at Kitty Hawk (the Larry Page-backed flying
Gagan Biyani CEO of Maven on AI, Learning, and Building Big
Online learning, AI adoption, and what it really takes to build a company worth building.Today's guest is Gagan Biyani, CEO and Co-founder of Maven and co-founder of Udemy, one of the largest online learning marketplaces in the world. Gagan has spent over 15 years building at the intersection of education and technology. His perspective on how professionals learn, adopt new tools, and think a
AI, Leadership, and Why Great Legal Leaders Let Go: Matthew Campobasso of Zone & Co.
What does it mean to lead legal without white-knuckling every outcome? Matthew Campobasso, Chief Legal Officer of Zone & Co., joins Cecilia Ziniti on CZ and Friends to answer that question head-on.Matthew brings nearly 20 years of legal experience across criminal prosecution, big law litigation, and in-house leadership. In this conversation, he unpacks why the legal profession has a control pr
AI and the Cost of Getting It Wrong with Sarah Binder of BetterUp & Sophie McNaught of SVB
Sarah Binder, General Counsel at BetterUp, and Sophie McNaught, Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank and advisor at Primary Venture Partners, join Cecilia for a sharp conversation on how legal and business leaders think about risk when the stakes are high, and the technology is moving even faster.They get into where risk shows up inside fast-growing companies, why the biggest early-stage risk
Translating Tech to the Courtroom: Michael Jacobs of JAMS on the Smartphone Wars and AI
Michael Jacobs, recently retired Partner and Trial Lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, current Evaluative Mediator and Arbitrator at JAMS, has spent decades at the center of the biggest technology disputes of our time, including Oracle v. Google and the Smartphone Wars. Michael shares his journey from serving as a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service to becoming a top intellectual property trial la
Scaling Legal in Education: Elana Freeman of Swing Education
How do you scale legal and compliance in one of the most complex regulatory environments, without becoming the “no” department?In this episode of CZ & Friends, Cecilia Ziniti sits down with Elana Freeman, Head of Legal & Compliance at Swing Education, to discuss what it takes to build a nimble, high-trust legal function inside a fast-growing EdTech marketplace.Elana shares how she navigate
The Tolstoy Test for Legal Leadership: Ron Bell of Collective Health (ex-Yahoo, Apple)
Ron Bell shares lessons from nearly three decades in Silicon Valley. From Apple during its near-collapse, to Yahoo’s formative years building one of the Valley’s first scaled in-house legal departments, to leading legal and administrative functions today at Collective Health.In this episode, Ron Bell, Chief Legal & Administrative Officer at Collective Health, talks with Cecilia to explore what
Calm Under Pressure: How Great CLOs Build Trust with Anirma Gupta of Unity
Anirma Gupta is a growth-stage legal leader with 3 decades of experience across tech, law, and leadership. In this episode she talks with Cecilia about what it means to “create the conditions” for good decisions. Anirma shares a practical model for enabling senior lawyers to step up: define the end game, build a lean tiger team, run crisp checkpoints, and provide air cover when the org gets noisy.
Lawyers and Outsiders as Founders: The Operator Mindset with Mallun Yen of Operator Collective
In this episode, Cecilia talks with Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO of Operator Collective, about judgment, risk, and why being an “outsider” can be a real competitive advantage.Mallun traces her path from patent litigator to Chief IP Counsel at Cisco, startup founder, and venture capitalist - and explains why legal training in risk analysis, systems thinking, and failure-mode analysis maps surprising
Leaving the GC Seat: Matt Gipple of Dryvebox on Product Judgment, Regulation, and Becoming a Founder
Matt Gipple, former General Counsel of Cruise and now co-founder of Dryvebox, talks with Cecilia about his the transition from legal advisor to decision-maker.Matt shares what it was like to join Cruise in its earliest days - working out of a garage, interpreting California’s first autonomous vehicle regulations in real time, and helping shape how disengagements, reporting, and compliance would wo
Becoming the GC Without Losing Your Life with Joseph Schohl of Inside Counsel Academy
In this episode, Cecilia Ziniti sits down with Joseph Schohl for a candid conversation about what it really takes to succeed in the GC role without burning out. Joseph is a former Fortune 500 healthcare General Counsel (DaVita), Founder of Inside Counsel Academy, Founder of GeneralCounselWest, and host of Becoming the GC Podcast.Joseph reflects on stepping into the General Counsel seat at just 36
From One Lawyer to Fortune 500: Maury Bricks & Michele Murray of GPM Investments on Building Trust and AI-Ready Legal
What does it take to scale from a department of one to a 30-person legal team inside a Fortune 500 company?General Counsel Maury Bricks and Associate General Counsel Michele Murray of ARKO Corp. / GPM Investments join Cecilia for a conversation on leadership, trust, and how to stay human through 26 acquisitions and non-stop growth.Maury shares how he built the legal backbone of one of America’s la
From Skeptic to Strategist: Danielle Sheer of Commvault on Trust, AI, and the Future of Legal Leadership
In this episode, Cecilia Ziniti talks with Danielle Sheer, Chief Trust Officer and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Commvault, about how legal leadership is evolving inside modern companies. Danielle explains why she adopted the title Chief Trust Officer, how it expands the reach and impact of the legal function, and why trust is often the deciding factor in whether teams succeed during momen
Facts Don’t Lie: SEC Insights, AI Risk and Keeping Law Human with Rebecca Fike of Reed Smith
Chambers-ranked Reed Smith partner and former SEC Senior Counsel Rebecca Fike brings a decade of enforcement experience to this episode of CZ & Friends. Rebecca shares how major investigations really unfold, why “facts don’t lie,” and how companies can protect themselves with process, documentation, and thoughtful disclosure controls. She also breaks down the rise of AI-washing, emerging enfor
Owning Risk, Building Trust: Ben Jacobs of Xero on Leadership, M&A, and Kindness in Law
What does it mean to own risk instead of advising on it?Ben Jacobs, General Manager of Legal for Strategic Growth & Development at Xero and President of the In-House Lawyers Association of New Zealand (ILANZ), joins Cecilia Ziniti to share how his views on in-house practice transformed, from seeing it as a “backup plan” to realizing it’s one of the most impactful roles in business.Ben leads gl
Culture as Strategy: Bill Berry (Chief Legal Officer) and Ariana Goodell (Sr. Counsel) of Verkada on Trust, Boundaries and Better
High performance without ego - that’s the playbook at Verkada. General Counsel Bill Berry and Senior Counsel, Privacy & Policy Ariana Goodell join Cecilia Ziniti to share how they build a legal org people love to work with—one that ships products, earns trust, and stays close to the business.They get tactical on product launches, privacy-by-design, and how to “be in the boat” with engineering
Courage and Conscience: General Counsel Jordan Breslow on Integrity and Plain English Lawyering at Etsy, Opsware, and in General
When everyone said yes, Jordan Breslow said no, and that decision kept his company out of scandal.The longtime Silicon Valley GC (Geoworks, Opsware, Silver Spring Networks, Etsy) joins host Cecilia Ziniti to share what decades inside tech taught him about courage, integrity, and how to stand by your instincts when the pressure is high.He tells the now-legendary story of advising Ben Horowitz not t
Original by Design: Deepgram GC Holly Hogan on AI Guardrails and Leading with Authenticity
Holly Hogan has built her career leading through change, from nearly a decade scaling Automattic (WordPress.com, Tumblr, Day One) to her new role as General Counsel at Deepgram, a frontier voice AI company.In this episode, she shares how to create AI guardrails that enable innovation, why “clear prompting reflects clear thinking,” and how small language shifts can transform how legal teams work an
Ask.com to AI: Doug Leeds on Curiosity, Persuasion, and Reinventing Leadership
Doug Leeds has lived through multiple technology booms—from the early internet to today’s AI wave. As CEO of Ask.com and IAC Publishing, he went head-to-head with Google, scaled digital publishing, and even pivoted a search engine by partnering with his fiercest competitor. Today, Doug teaches leadership and persuasion at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and is co-founding a nonprofit, Really
Instacart Legal: Making AI Everyday Practice
Today’s guests are Nicole Altman, Senior Counsel, and Kelly Noguchi, Senior Legal Technology and Operations Manager, at Instacart. They are helping shape how a public company’s legal team experiments with, adopts, and scales AI. Together, they show what innovation looks like when it is encouraged and operationalized.You’ll hear:– How Instacart Legal made AI exploration part of team and company-wid
Telehealth, Trust, and AI: CLO of Simple Practice Ali Hartley on How Legal Scales Healthcare
Today’s guest is Ali Hartley, Chief Legal Officer at SimplePractice. Ali has spent her career navigating healthcare’s toughest challenges at Sutter Health, Favor, and Carbon Health before stepping in to help scale SimplePractice. Along the way, she’s shown how legal can be more than compliance–it can be a growth engine.You’ll hear:– How telehealth regulations during the pandemic opened unexpected
Move Fast, Build Trust: Peter Katz on Scaling Legal at Duo and Expel
Peter Katz (GC at Expel; former first GC at Duo Security) shares how he scaled legal inside high-growth cybersecurity companies while keeping the business moving. He explains why great in-house lawyering starts with relationships, clear risk choices, and the humility to say “I don’t know - yet.”You’ll hear:– Why Peter left firm life in year four and chose Vanguard to build business context and peo
Cleared for Takeoff: Kerrie Forbes of JSX on Playing Fair and Building Legal Strategy in Aviation
From 16 years at Southwest to leading legal at JSX, Kerrie Forbes knows what it means to navigate turbulence—regulatory battles, competitor challenges, and high-stakes litigation—while keeping fairness and trust as her North Star. In this episode, she reveals how legal leaders can find clarity at 30,000 feet and on the ground.You’ll hear:– How JSX operates under FAA and TSA frameworks while delive
Legal as a Product: David Morris on IPOs, Global Expansion & Building High-Impact Teams
What does it look like when a general counsel reframes legal as a growth engine instead of a cost center?Today’s guest is David Morris, a seasoned GC who has led through IPOs, multi-billion-dollar SPAC transactions, and global market expansion. At TripAdvisor, David helped take the company public, opened new markets, including Cuba, and launched a government affairs function that won the license t
From Engineer to CAO: Diane Honda on AI, Trust, and Leading Change
What does going from writing code to leading legal, compliance, HR, and security at a high-growth tech company look like?In this episode, Diane Honda shares her journey from Carnegie Mellon software engineer to GC who took Barracuda Networks public, to her current role as Chief Administrative Officer at Redis. Along the way, she’s shaped how companies adopt AI, built legal teams into growth engine
Turning Legal Into a Growth Engine: IRC's CLO Chuck Kable on Strategy, Compliance & Change
What does it take for a GC to operate as a true executive leader—driving transformation across legal, compliance, and beyond?Today’s guest is Chuck Kable, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Innovative Renal Care, whose career includes transformative leadership roles at Axiom Medical, Emerus, and Cardon Outreach. Chuck has guided companies through high-value private equity transactions, bui
Quantum & Law: Kaniah Konkoly-Thege on Quantum, Policy & Leadership
How do legal leaders navigate the complexities of emerging technologies like quantum computing while shaping public policy and guiding organizations through change? In this episode, Cecilia Ziniti sits down with Kaniah Konkoly-Thege, a legal expert whose journey spans from the Department of the Interior to cutting-edge work in quantum computing. Kaniah shares her experiences working on the histori
Navigating Innovation & IP at Scale: Tina Patel on Building Legal at Amazon
How do you guide legal strategy for groundbreaking products like Alexa while managing risk and leading at scale? Today’s guest, Tina Patel, is a retired VP & Associate General Counsel at Amazon Lab126, where she oversaw legal strategy for products like Alexa and Kindle. She unpacks her journey from Big Law to in-house leadership at one of the world’s most innovative companies and shares lesson
Leading With Trust: Tricia Kinney on High-Performance Legal Teams at Scale
Today's guest is Tricia Kinney, a seasoned General Counsel and executive who’s led legal, compliance, and corporate affairs at some of the largest and most complex organizations in North America. Most recently the GC and Corporate Secretary at BlueLinx Corporation, Tricia has built and led teams across industries—from manufacturing to services—navigating M&A, enterprise risk, governance,
Think Like a Builder: Jeremy Siegel on Being the First Legal Hire Startups Actually Need
Today’s guest is Jeremy Siegel, a legal leader known for operating where things are messy—and making them work. Jeremy currently serves as General Counsel at Final Bell, a cannabis supply chain platform, and is the founder of Legal Mise, where he advises startups at the edge of innovation, including in AI, logistics, and CPG.Cecilia and Jeremy explore what it means to lead legal from inside the bu
Built to Scale: Alice Davidson & Jenna Hunt on Evolving Legal at a Global Fintech Tipalti
Cecilia sits down with Alice Davidson, General Counsel at Tipalti, and Jenna Hunt, Head of Legal Operations. Together, they’ve built and evolved a legal function that supports one of the fastest-scaling global fintech companies—operating across 200 countries, 120 currencies, and 50 payment methods.Alice brings a sharp securities and M&A background, previously serving as CLO at Mogo. Jenna blen
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