CZ and Friends

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 a...

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, Reall...

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-w...

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 unexpecte...

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 p...

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 deli...

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...

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 engin...

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, bu...

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 histor...

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 lesso...

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,...

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 b...

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 ble...