Major, Lindsey & Africa Recruits Chief Compliance Officer for CONCACAF
September 13, 2016 – Major, Lindsey & Africa (MLA) has recruited Guilherme Carvalho as chief legal and chief compliance officer of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) in Miami. The international search was led by Brian Davis, Rosalind Dodd and Jeffrey Liebster, all based in MLA’s New York office.
The organization sought a leader with appropriate legal credentials, extensive work experience in legal or compliance positions within multinational corporations, and strong management skills.
In his new role, Mr. Carvalho will lead the legal and compliance areas of the Confederation, including managing its legal affairs and overseeing the daily operations of CONCACAF’s compliance and integrity programs.
Collaborative Compliance Leaders In Demand
He joins CONCACAF from Yahoo!, where he was vice president and associate general counsel, Americas and U.S. Hispanic, a role he held since 2005. He was responsible for all legal affairs and public policy matters for a wide range of the company’s businesses and subsidiaries throughout the region. Prior to that, he was a member of the Latin America practice group at White & Case, LLP.
“This robust, international search for CONCACAF’s first chief legal and chief compliance officer generated interest from dozens of candidates all over the world,” said Mr. Davis.
Ms. Dodd said: “Bill Carvalho is an experienced, skilled and effective advisor with a broad range of skills and qualifications, including team leadership, partner management, government relations and compliance.”
Finding senior leadership within the regulatory and compliance functions is exceedingly complex today, as companies face intense pressure under the current regulatory environment. Leaders who can foster close collaboration between compliance and other corporate functions, as well as communicate to a more complex and sophisticated set of stakeholders, are in sharply rising demand.
The Recruiters
Mr. Davis is well versed in handling in-house searches, primarily for financial services clients. His particular recruiting skill set includes corporate finance, capital markets, private equity, hedge fund, compliance and tax searches for major financial institutions, broker-dealers, hedge funds, private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and law firms.
Ms. Dodd specializes in placing general counsel, senior attorneys and compliance officers with corporate clients across a variety of industries, including financial services, manufacturing, consumer products, healthcare, pharmaceutical, media, advertising and technology.
Mr. Liebster has handled the placement of partners in a variety of practice areas, including intellectual property litigation and transactions, securities litigation and enforcement, corporate, energy, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and white collar litigation.
Legal Recruiting In Robust Cycle
Legal recruiting generally has been booming this year. According to Hunt-Scanlon Media, lawyers employed by government agencies are on the move — a direct results of President Obama’s second term nearing its end. Employment of lawyers is projected to grow 10 percent through 2022. Demand for legal work is expected to be robust as individuals, businesses, and all levels of government require legal services in the U.S. and internationally as global economies expand.
To meet this demand, since the start of the year MLA has been bolstering its staff and search practices.
In June, MLA named Randi S. Lewis as a director to launch and lead its Baltimore recruiting office. She specializes in recruiting and placing law firm partners and associates within the Baltimore market and surrounding areas. In her new position, she also will focus on helping law firms with strategic practice acquisitions and planning.
The firm also recently launched a new managed legal services offering, which provides corporate clients with process analysis, customized action plans and implementation assistance. Mark Yacano leads the team, which operates within its solutions practice group from the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
In February, MLA appointed Ronald Stevens to the firm’s partner practice group in Houston. With more than 20 years of comprehensive experience as a practicing lawyer and talent management consultant in both the U.S. and Europe, he focuses on representing individual partners and partner groups in the lateral marketplace.
A few weeks before that, MLA named Stacey Breen and Peter Van Son as directors in its partner practice group in New York. Ms. Breen is a litigator with over 15 years of experience. She was previously a partner at law firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz in New York. Mr. Van Son is a legal operations executive and attorney with a successful track record at major AmLaw 100 firms.
Earlier this year, MLA named Jennifer Silver as executive director and global head of marketing and communications. She is based in the firm’s Boston office and will be responsible for strategic marketing for both MLA and Allegis Partners, its sister company focused on executive search.
Contributed by Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor, Hunt Scanlon Media
