From the Mailroom to the Boardroom, You Have To Connect With the Humans

In this Impact episode, Aarash Darroodi, Fender's General Counsel and Executive Vice President, and Elevate's COO and General Counsel, Steve Harmon, discuss implementing change, specifically the need to insist and engage to ensure inclusion and diversity within legal. The conversation continues with the discussion on legal professionals as business leaders and the recent appointment of legal leaders to executive business roles. The most compelling points in this podcast revolve around Aarash's personal story and its impact on his career.

00:14 Aarash credits his life experience as key to successfully implementing change within Fender.

07:45 Approaching change as a General Counsel, the incrementalist, and the revolutionary.

10:00 In-house counsel are critical in ensuring fundamental positive change. 

12:00 A differentiator between in-house and outside counsel is a greater expectation around business acumen.

15:29 The legal department's role is to enable the business; to help the business design, build and sell its products in a legally appropriate way.

19:52. The highest compliment a businessperson could pay to the lawyer is to say, "I want you here to talk about the business issues."

24:18 Unlike twenty years ago, today a general counsel may become the business leader .