Sam Ranganathan of AbbVie will serve as chair, ACC Legal Operations. Tania Daniels of The Walt Disney Company will serve as vice chair.
WASHINGTON (June 12, 2018) — The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a global legal association representing more than 43,000 members in 85 countries, named new leadership for ACC Legal Operations, its membership section for legal operations executives. Sowmyan ("Sam") Ranganathan, senior director, legal operations, AbbVie, will serve as chair, ACC Legal Operations; and Tania Daniels, head of global legal operations, The Walt Disney Company, will serve as vice chair, ACC Legal Operations. Ranganathan's priorities as chair include redefining the role of legal operations in a rapidly evolving legal ecosystem and looking for ways to identify and adopt best practices for the benefit of the legal operations community. "As the legal operations function becomes both more prevalent and more advanced, I plan to work with our dedicated volunteer network to ensure that we strike the right balance," Ranganathan said. "We seek to help companies just building out the operations function in their legal departments as well as those that are driving innovation for the entire profession." Ranganathan, a previous vice chair, will take over as chair from Reese Arrowsmith, vice president and head of legal operations, Campbell Soup Co. Arrowsmith was the inaugural ACC Legal Operations Chair, and his tenure included the development of the ACC Maturity Model, Toolkit, and Webinar Series. The reference tool provides law department leaders the ability to benchmark maturity, gain alignment on department priorities, and enhance the operations of a legal department. As ACC Legal Operations closes out 2018 and beyond, leaders will also focus on further development of the seven interest groups, two industry groups, and nine regional groups. They will work with the interest groups on enhanced approaches to leverage the collective knowledge and bring new opportunities for professional growth. "Under Sam and Tania's leadership, we will further our ability to support legal operations professionals as they drive their departments – and the entire legal profession – forward." said Catherine J. Moynihan, associate vice president of legal management services at ACC. At AbbVie, Ranganathan spends most of his days devising innovative ways to make legal functions more efficient. In addition, he is currently working to build an Information Governance program that ensures proactive management of data risks. He was previously the Head of Legal Operations at Motorola Mobility where he built a legal operations team to support a newly formed public company. He received an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois at Chicago and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Daniels leads a team that manages operational services for the Disney Legal community including outside counsel and vendor management, eBilling and matter management, work product lifecycle management, knowledge management, legal project management and process improvement, law library services, and CLE. She was previously a director of knowledge management at two AMLaw 100 law firms. She holds a J.D. from the California Western School of Law, and an M.L.S. and B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany. The ACC Legal Operations executive team: Ranganathan, Daniels, and Arrowsmith, along with Elizabeth Jaworski, senior director, head of global legal operations, Astellas US LLC, will lead the closing workshop, "How to be a ringleader in the evolving legal ecosystem," at the ACC Legal Operations Conference.
About ACC: The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) is a global legal association that promotes the common professional and business interests of in-house counsel who work for corporations, associations and other organizations through information, education, networking, and advocacy. With more than 43,000 members in 85 countries employed by over 10,000 organizations, ACC connects its members to the people and resources necessary for both personal and professional growth. By in-house counsel, for in-house counsel.® For more information, visit www.acc.com and follow ACC on Twitter: @ACCinhouse.