On the first day of every year, Simon Leung traditionally makes a list of short- and long-term goals, and throughout the subsequent months he refers to them as he prioritizes his moves. For many years, “get hired as general counsel for a Fortune 500 company” ranked high on his roster, so when the opportunity arose to join SYNNEX Corporation in November 2000 as the global IT supply chain services company’s general counsel and corporate secretary, Leung was quick to accept the job.
“When I came on board at the Fremont, California, headquarters, my first task was to organize a legal department,” recalls Leung. “Essentially I was hired to take the company public, and because SYNNEX was founded in 1980, there was 20 years of history to put in order for an IPO. There was a lot to do—more managerial than legal.”
First, Leung began asking attorney friends and various in-house counsel questions about systems and controls, areas in which the former outside counsel was less experienced. He also learned the business, and though the IPO market tanked in the spring of 2001, SYNNEX eventually went public in 2003. Today, Leung says, the multibillion-dollar corporation is a lean, mean machine.
Prior to coming to SYNNEX, the University of Minnesota Law School graduate had in-house experience as a staff attorney for a Fortune 500 insurance company and outside counsel experience with a large law firm, all in the San Francisco area. “As outside counsel, you might work on a discrete project and give advice that the company may or may not choose to follow,” observes Leung. “When you’re in-house, you feel the ramifications of your decisions much more closely. Your recommendation comes with legal and business backing, and whether it succeeds or fails is down to you. I love that about my job.”
In ten years, Leung sees himself as general counsel somewhere. Though not averse to seizing future opportunities should they arise, Leung says that if things remain interesting with his current employer, he very well may still be there. “At SYNNEX,” says Leung, “I’ve got law, am engaged in business, and get to mentor a few folks. This is a sweet spot for me.” DB
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From the September/October 2007 issue of Diversity & The Bar®