Recent personnel moves at IBM, News Corp and Dean Foods
Michael Sgro
1) American Water, the largest publicly traded water and wastewater utility company in the US, has appointed Michael Sgro as senior vice president, general counsel and secretary.
Sgro was most recently general counsel of American Water’s northeast division, and has also served as interim general counsel since early January.
Sgro joined American Water in 1993 as secretary and corporate counsel of New Jersey American Water, eventually becoming GC of the northeast division, which includes American Water’s New Jersey and New York subsidiaries. In this role, he was responsible for all legal matters, including acquisitions and other business development opportunities, real estate and regulatory matters, various contract and commercial matters, and corporate governance. Sgro also led New Jersey American’s government affairs efforts for the past six months.
Before joining American Water, Sgro was an associate with Dechert and also held various business positions with CertainTeed Corp. In addition, he serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, and as a board member at the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce and the New Jersey Utilities Association.
He received his law degree from Temple University School of Law in 1989 and a BA in international relations from Saint Joseph University in 1980. Sgro is a member of the bar associations of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Marc Kesselman
2) Marc Kesselman has joined Dean Foods Co as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary.
He previously served as senior vice president and general counsel of Frito-Lay North America and PepsiCo’s food businesses in North and South America.
Before working at PepsiCo, where he oversaw complex commercial, transactional, litigation, regulatory and government affairs issues, Kesselman was general counsel of the US Department of Agriculture and deputy GC in the White House Office of Management and Budget. He has also served as senior counsel at the US Department of Justice, as a trial attorney in the civil division and as an attorney at Ropes & Gray.
Kesselman is a graduate of Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Samantha Hanley
3) Samantha Hanley has been promoted to the position of vice president, general counsel and secretary at Cambrex Corp, a life sciences firm that provides services, products and technologies to advance the development and commercialization of small molecule therapeutics. She succeeds William Haskel, who has decided to seek other opportunities outside of Cambrex but will remain with Cambrex through the end of February to ensure a smooth transition.
Hanley formerly served as assistant general counsel and assistant secretary at Cambrex. Previously, she worked at Alpharma Pharmaceuticals as director of intellectual property and was an associate with Lerner, David, Littenberg, Krumholtz & Mentlik, an intellectual property law firm.
Hanley earned a BA in chemistry from Emory University and received a JD from Brooklyn Law School.
Michelle Browdy
4) IBM has named Michelle Browdy as senior vice president, legal and regulatory affairs, and general counsel, reporting to IBM’s chairman, president and CEO, Ginni Rometty. She replaces Robert C Weber, who stepped down as general counsel on January 1 but will remain as a senior advisor until he retires later in 2015.
Most recently, Browdy served as secretary to IBM’s board of directors from 2012 to 2014. Prior to that, she was IBM’s worldwide head of litigation for five years, overseeing intellectual property, antitrust/competition, employment, class action, securities and commercial litigation globally.
Before joining IBM, Browdy was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis. She has also acted as a special assistant attorney general for the State of Illinois and taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University School of Law.
She received a BSE, summa cum laude, from Princeton University; an SM in applied mathematics from Harvard University; and a JD from The Yale Law School, where she was managing editor of The Yale Law Journal. She clerked for the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, and is a member of the bar in Illinois and New York State.
David Pitofsky
5) News Corp has appointed David Pitofsky as general counsel and chief compliance officer. He succeeds Gerson Zweifach, who remains group general counsel and chief compliance officer of 21st Century Fox and served as GC of News Corp on a transitional basis after the separation of the two companies in June 2013.
As GC, Pitofsky will oversee News Corp’s global legal operations, while as CCO he will chair the company’s compliance steering committee. He joined News Corp from Goodwin Procter, where he was a partner. From 1996 to 2005, he was an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, where he rose to the level of deputy chief of the criminal division. Pitofsky had been deputy GC and deputy chief compliance officer of News Corp since 2013.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an executive editor of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.
James Small
6) James Small has been named senior vice president, secretary and general counsel of Overseas Shipholding Group, effective in March. He replaces James I Edelson, who will assume responsibility for governmental affairs at the tanker company.
Most recently, Small was a counsel with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in its New York office, where his practice focused on US securities laws and corporate and financial matters. He also advised companies on corporate governance matters and co-authored articles on disclosure practices, securities law and corporate governance. He was recognized by The Legal 500 US for his capital markets practice.
Small joined Cleary Gottlieb in 1996, became counsel in 2008, and worked in the firm’s New York, London and Hong Kong offices. Before starting his legal career, he was an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Small received a JD (with distinction) from Stanford Law School in 1996, where he was senior editor and ombudsperson of the Stanford Law Review and a member of the Stanford Journal of International Law. He has a BA in astrophysics and political science from Williams College, and is a member of the bar in New York.
