Anne Lee Benedict

General Counsel,
Thomas James Homes

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As General Counsel and Secretary, Anne oversees the legal affairs of Thomas James Homes. She previously served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Summit Materials, Inc. (NYSE: SUM), a leading U.S. based construction materials company, where she was responsible for all legal matters.

Prior to joining Summit in 2013, Anne was a partner in the Washington DC office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she had practiced since 2000. Her practice involved a wide range of corporate law matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other strategic transactions, securities offerings, securities regulation and disclosure issues, and corporate governance matters. She began her legal career with Chadbourne & Parke (now Norton Rose Fulbright) in New York in 1999.

Anne graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1999. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1995.

Deneen Donnley

Senior Vice President & General Counsel,
Consolidated Edison Company of New York

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Deneen serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies. She previously served as Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary to USAA. She also previously served as the general counsel for USAA Bank.

Before joining USAA, Deneen worked at ING DIRECT as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Prior to joining ING DIRECT, she served as an attorney for Pepper Hamilton LLP and a staff attorney with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Deneen serves on the Boards of Directors of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) and Girls Inc. of New York City. She is a member of both the Executive Leadership Council and the Direct Women Board Institute.

A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics, Deneen also received her Juris Doctor degree from Fordham University School of Law in New York.

Cynthia Dow

Managing Director, Head of Global Legal, Regulatory & Compliance Practice,
Russell Reynolds Associates

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Cynthia Dow leads the firm’s Boston office, covering the New England region. She also heads the global Legal, Regulatory & Compliance Officers Practice and is a senior member of the Consumer, Board & CEO and Diversity & Inclusion Practices. Cynthia focuses on General Counsel, Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and other board and corporate governance roles across a broad range of industries, including legal, consumer, industrial, technology, energy, sports and entertainment, healthcare and financial services. Her clients range from Fortune 500 organizations to global mid-cap and small-cap private organizations and portfolio companies of leading private equity firms.

Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates, Cynthia had a successful legal career as a corporate generalist, and labor and employment attorney. She practiced law for more than 15 years, as an attorney with Baker Botts LLP in Dallas, as the General Counsel to a technology company and as Vice President & Assistant General Counsel with Cadbury Schweppes. During her legal career, Cynthia led legal departments and advised across labor and employment, regulatory matters and corporate restructurings. Earlier in her career, she served as Senior Law Clerk to Chief Judge Jerry Buchmeyer of the Northern District of Texas.

Cynthia received her BA in government from Cornell University, with distinction, and her JD from the Columbia School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an editor of the Journal of Law and Social Problems. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is a retired member of the New York and Texas State Bars, and previously led the Board of Directors at the Dallas Contemporary art museum.

Jay Kim

Partner,
Major, Lindsey & Africa

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Jay Kim is a Partner with the San Francisco office. She focuses on in-house searches from small private startups to Fortune 500 companies. Jay recruits for a wide range of positions, including for General Counsels, DGC/AGCs, Chiefs of IP, Compliance, Employment, and other specialized roles. Since joining  Major, Lindsey & Africa in April of 2011, a majority of her placements have been diversity candidates.

Living in the Bay Area (since 1989), Jay has developed a particular expertise in the needs of industries intersecting with technology and life sciences — zeroing in on the right candidates from a select nationwide pool. Her dedication to engraining herself in her client’s culture and her true commitment to finding the best person for their teams results in long-term matches that thrive within even the most unique environments.

Jay’s client list includes: Agilent, Amyris*, Applied Materials, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, CytomX*, Cytokinetics, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, GlobalLogic, Novo Ventures, Portola Pharma, Red Hat, Square Inc., Uber Technologies*, University of California, Varian Medical Systems*, UNITY Biotechnology, Zendesk and Zymergen*.

Jay has also successfully partnered with our Asia office on a general counsel search for a NYSE-listed technology company in Seoul, Korea, and worked closely with Infosys headquarters in Bangalore, India, to place their general counsel in Silicon Valley.  She also recently closed a search for Novartis, located in Basel, Switzerland.

Jay has a deep passion and understanding for diversity and is regular speaker and contributor to several diversity organizations, not only sharing her experience but also providing guidance and support to members to help them find career-success and fulfillment.

Jay started her career working as a litigator for five years, including at Gordon & Rees as an associate and with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as a legal affairs staff attorney. After practicing law, she opened a small business and explored her creative side in music and fashion while traveling extensively. She then moved into recruiting at a major legal recruiting firm before joining Major, Lindsey & Africa.

Education

• University of California, Hastings College of the Law: J.D.
• San Francisco State University: B.A., magna cum laude
  • Phi Beta Kappa

Tina Shah Paikeday

Head of Global D&I Advisory Services,
Russell Reynolds Associates

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Tina Shah Paikeday leads the firm’s global D&I Consulting Services as a senior member of the Leadership & Succession Practice. Recent work has included the recruitment of Chief Diversity Officers, the development of inclusive leaders and inclusive culture transformation. Based in San Francisco, she advises public, private and nonprofit clients around the world.

Previous Experience
Tina has more than 20 years of industry experience. She joined Russell Reynolds Associates from the Talent Advisory Board, a boutique research and management consulting firm she founded. As a Managing Director, Tina advised clients on managing a diverse workforce. Earlier, she was a Senior Director at the Corporate Executive Board and was instrumental in building the Corporate Leadership Council Solutions people analytics business. Tina started her career at McKinsey & Company and has worked in sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble and The Clorox Company. Tina was also CEO of zBox Company, a venture-backed, tech-based appliance producer whose product line was later acquired by Whirlpool.

Education & Affiliations
Tina received a BS in commerce, with honors, from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She has also completed doctoral-level coursework and is researching mindfulness and executive decision-making. Tina has lectured on organizational behavior, strategy and leadership at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Virginia. She is a Trustee of the IDEA Fund at the University of Virginia, an active supporter of Vision 2025: Diversity and Community at Stanford University and a member of the Academy of Management.

Craig Silliman

Executive Vice President of Public Policy & General Counsel,
Verizon Communications

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Craig Silliman is Executive Vice President, Public Policy and General Counsel, responsible for leading the company’s public policy, legal, regulatory, government affairs and security groups.

Before assuming his current position in January 2015, Silliman was Senior Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs, with responsibility for Verizon’s global public policy, federal and state legislative affairs, federal regulatory affairs, strategic alliances, national security, privacy and corporate citizenship.

Prior to that, Silliman served in a number of other senior management roles at Verizon. He was Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Verizon’s wireline consumer, business and wholesale groups globally, and Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, with responsibility for antitrust, intellectual property, national security, privacy and strategic product support.

Prior to joining a Verizon predecessor company in 1997, Silliman was an attorney in the international trade practice at Collier, Shannon, Rill & Scott in Washington, D.C. He has also taught international telecommunications regulation as an adjunct professor at the American University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

Silliman earned his law degree from the University of Virginia.

Hannah Lim-Johnson

Former Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary,
Meritor, Inc.

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Hannah Lim-Johnson was senior vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Meritor, Inc. She joined Meritor in August 2020.

In this position, Lim-Johnson had responsibility for Meritor’s legal affairs, which included oversight of legal activities related to corporate governance, acquisitions and divestitures, litigation, business standards compliance, regulatory compliance and intellectual property. She also managed the global corporate legal and compliance department.

Lim-Johnson was most recently a senior vice president and chief legal officer at Kelly Services, where she was responsible for leading the strategic direction of the Law Department and Global Security functions. She also held senior-level roles at PSEG, the ADT Corporation and TYCO International, and served as deputy attorney general for the Attorney General’s Office in Trenton, New Jersey.

Lim-Johnson holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Rutgers University School of Law, where she served as the Managing Editor of the Rutgers Law Review, and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Illinois. She also serves as a board member for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and the Leadership Institute of Women of Color Attorneys.

MICHAEL TANG

Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary,
Agilent Technologies, Inc.

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Michael Tang is Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Agilent Technologies. He is responsible for leading Agilent’s global legal organization and advising the board of directors and management team on all aspects of the law, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities matters.

Tang has served in the Legal and Corporate Development departments of Agilent since joining the company in 2006. In 2013 he was named Agilent Vice President, Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary. Tang was the lead attorney on Agilent’s spinoff of its electronic measurement business to form Keysight Technologies.

Prior to Agilent, Tang represented public and private technology companies in a broad range of corporate and securities matters at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto, California, law firm and Fenwick & West LLP, a Mountain View, California, law firm.

Tang is a graduate of Columbia Law School. He also holds a B.S. in economics from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He is an active member of the State Bar of California.