Counsel Collective · Leaders to Watch · Legal
The GeneralCounsel Twenty
The lawyers who stopped being only lawyers.
Twenty sitting general counsel and chief legal officers, none of whom appeared on the last list. Chosen editorially, confirmed against each person’s own record, sponsored by no one on it. Recognition here is free and always will be.
The general counsel seat stopped being a legal seat, and the titles said so first.
Twenty general counsel. None of them were on the last list.
That second sentence is the point. Most legal lists recycle the same names every year, because the safest thing a list can do is agree with itself. This one starts from zero. The single exception is a lawyer who was recognised at Coinbase and now runs legal and global affairs at a frontier AI company, which is a different job.
Twelve of the twenty do not only run legal. One is chief legal officer, chief compliance officer and head of HR at the same firm. One is chief people officer and chief legal officer at once. One runs legal and product management across 480 billion dollars in assets. One is executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief legal officer, all three, and owns revenue across nearly fifty markets.
The class is grouped by industry rather than ranked. A general counsel at a football club and a general counsel at a construction business are not competing with each other, and pretending they are is what makes most lists feel arbitrary. Every seat was confirmed against the person’s own record in August. Where our file disagreed, the record won. That check moved two people off the page.
Cognition
Paul Grewal
Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer
Clerked on the Federal Circuit, spent ten years a partner at Howrey, then served five and a half years as a United States magistrate judge in the Northern District of California. Left the bench for Facebook as deputy general counsel, ran legal at Coinbase for six years, and took legal and global affairs at Cognition this month.
MrBeast
Damien Atkins
Chief Legal Officer
Chief legal officer at MrBeast since 2024, after the same seat at Aura and senior vice president and general counsel of The Hershey Company. Savoy named him one of the most influential Black executives in corporate America in 2024.
Discord
Clint Smith
Chief Legal Officer
Six years running legal at Discord. Lectured at Stanford, sits on the board of ROOST.tools, and advises or invests in a long list of AI, open source and security companies including Ollama, Bitwarden and HackerOne.
JFrog
Shanti Ariker
Chief Legal Officer
General counsel at Salesforce.org, deputy general counsel at Twilio, then general counsel and chief privacy officer at Zendesk, and chief legal officer at JFrog since 2023. Sat on Coveo’s board until this year.
Elastic
Carolyn Herzog
Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
Ran legal for Symantec across EMEA, then five years as executive vice president and general counsel at Arm, and chief legal officer at Elastic since 2022. Sits on the Association of Corporate Counsel board with its audit and risk committees, and on the executive committee of the BSA.
Edgewell Personal Care
LaTanya Langley
Chief People Officer, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
Twenty five years across publicly traded consumer goods businesses. Became Edgewell’s chief legal officer in 2022 and added chief people officer in 2023. Teaches at the University of Connecticut School of Law and holds an honorary doctorate of laws.
MDU Resources Group
Anthony D. Foti
Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
Came up through Foot Locker to senior vice president and deputy general counsel, then took the chief legal seat at MDU Resources in 2024. Describes himself as the primary bridge between management and the board.
TEGNA
Alex Tolston
Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer
Leads legal at TEGNA across governance, content distribution, regulatory, ethics, M&A, capital markets and litigation, and runs the company’s advocacy and government affairs. Worked in investment banking and corporate strategy before the law.
Barstool Sports
Paul Anderson
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Nearly seven years at Forbes as associate general counsel for intellectual property and commercial matters, covering advertising, licensing, brand extensions, live events and influencer compliance. Joined Barstool in 2021 and has been promoted twice since.
National Vision
Jared Brandman
Chief Legal and Strategy Officer
Started at Milbank and Paul Hastings, then seven years as securities counsel at The Coca-Cola Company. Joined National Vision in 2017 and rose from assistant general counsel to general counsel to chief legal and strategy officer last year.
Capgemini
Ashley A. Miller
General Counsel, Financial Services North America and Head of Legal Operations
Eighteen years at the intersection of law, technology and operations. Rose through Capgemini from assistant general counsel to head of legal operations for North America, and now general counsel for financial services across the region.
Dave & Buster’s
Rachel Morgan
Chief Legal and Administrative Officer
Almost thirty years in public company legal leadership. Rose at Nexstar Media Group to executive vice president and general counsel, then moved to Dave & Buster’s this year, where she leads legal, risk, compliance and human resources.
Pantera Capital
Katrina Paglia
Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and Head of HR
Started as a compliance manager at American Express in 2006. Seven years at Och-Ziff, then general counsel and chief compliance officer at Capstone, then crypto assets legal at Coinbase. At Pantera she took GC and CCO in January 2023 and had human resources added six months later.
Nu Skin
Chayce Clark
Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer
Eleven years at Nu Skin, from assistant general counsel to executive vice president and general counsel. In March he added chief operating officer, and now owns global operational execution and revenue performance across nearly fifty markets, alongside legal.
Barings
Jill Dinerman
Chief Legal Officer and Head of Product Management
Joined Barings as head of US legal in 2020, became chief legal officer in 2022, with product management added in 2023. A JD and an MBA, overseeing the legal, governance and product infrastructure behind more than 480 billion dollars in assets under management.
Milwaukee Bucks
Michael Sneathern
Chief Legal Officer
Associate counsel at the Milwaukee Bucks in 2002 and eleven years in that seat before the first promotion. Senior director, then vice president for legal, then chief legal officer since 2019. Twenty four years, one franchise, and nothing else on his record.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Cassie McBride
Chief Legal Officer
Fifteen years across the MLB, the NFL, the NHL and professional wrestling. General counsel at the Jacksonville Jaguars, then All Elite Wrestling, then the San Jose Sharks, and chief legal officer of the Buccaneers since 2024.
Teichert
Kim Yapchai
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer
Practising since 1992, in multinationals up to twenty billion dollars in revenue. Chief legal officer at Teichert from 2024 with administrative added last year. Designated a Top Mind in Compliance and has overseen more than seven hundred investigations a year.
Citizens
Michelle Moosally
General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer
A career through the banks that defined the crisis and what came after. Managing director principal at Bear Stearns to 2008, eight years at JPMorgan Chase, then Santander US and Wells Fargo. Took the top legal seat at Citizens last year.
AB InBev Nigeria
Temitope Oluwatosin
General Counsel and Company Secretary
Leads legal, governance and regulatory work for AB InBev in Nigeria, at International Breweries Plc. Came through PZ Cussons as head of legal for Africa, company secretary to its subsidiaries and the region’s data protection officer. A three-time Legal 500 GC Powerlist honouree, 2024 through 2026, and a graduate member of the Chartered Governance Institute.
No one in the class matches that. Clear the search to see all twenty.
Re-nominated, and already recognised
Four leaders in this cycle’s nomination set were put forward again and are already recognised, in the same seat, on The Legal Power List or its private capital watch list. Rather than print the same name twice, we point back to where their recognition already lives. A second nomination is not nothing: somebody put the name forward again without being asked.
How this list was built
Every seat was confirmed against the person’s own LinkedIn record in August 2026. Where our file disagreed with that record, the record won. That check moved two people off the page: both had left the seat they were nominated for.
Grouped by industry, never ranked. Nobody here appeared on a prior Counsel Collective list, with a single exception who changed companies. Recognition is unconditional: it follows the nomination, not a conversation, and anyone who would rather not be included is removed on request, same day, no explanation needed.
One petal does not open on its own. It opens when you give someone else theirs.
Nominate a leaderRecognition here is free and always will be. Nobody bought a place, nobody bought a better one, and no advertising runs beside it.
This list is the beginning
The story continues past the roll call
Every leader named here can take the recognition further with a full length feature, built with them and at no cost. The audience holds a hand in what comes next, too. 2026 is the nomination year: put names forward and back the leaders you rate through Give Them Their Flowers. That support carries into the culminating recognitions that land throughout 2027, decided editorially and supported by the audience. Nobody pays for either.
