Dive Brief:
- The global executive search and leadership advisory firm Marlin Hawk recently announced it has launched a Legal, Risk, and Compliance practice amid a very active in-house legal department hiring market.
- Marlin Hawk said it has retained Brandy Russell, who has experience leading general counsel and chief compliance officer searches, as the client partner for the new practice.
- "We have long believed that a specialist legal practice would be very beneficial and additive to Marlin Hawk and our broader strategy to influence across the top table in our current and prospective clients," said John-Claude Hesketh, Marlin Hawk’s global managing partner, in a prepared statement.
Dive Insight:
Marlin Hawk is entering the legal hiring market at a time in which there has been a flurry of movement from the general counsel level on down, creating plenty of work for search firms.
Russell, the partner they have tapped to lead the new practice, has roughly eight years of search experience in the legal and compliance space.
She joins Marlin Hawk from global executive search and leadership consulting firm DHR Global, where she was a partner in the Legal, Compliance, and Risk practice.
Before joining DHR, Russell was a managing director in the In-House Practice Group at Major, Lindsey & Africa.
In addition to leading GC and CCO searches, she has also led searches for senior reports to GCs. This has included regional/divisional GCs, corporate secretaries, chief IP counsels and chief securities counsels.
Her legal and compliance clients include publicly and privately held companies that cover a variety of industries, including financial services, retail, consumer products, technology, insurance and healthcare.
"In the last few years, corporate legal departments have faced unprecedented challenges related to an increasingly changeable regulatory landscape, consumer and shareholder activism driving accountability around ESG initiatives, and attracting and retaining top-level talent in an extraordinarily active market," Russell said in a statement. "Lawyers in the corporate world and those supporting them need to be more than just legal advisors. They need to be business and operationally savvy leaders, too."
Russell also has experience as a practicing lawyer. She practiced as a commercial litigator in the New York offices of Anderson, Kill & Olick; McKee Nelson; and Bingham McCutchen.
“Having started her career as a lawyer, Brandy is uniquely positioned to provide expert advice in her field and can draw on first-hand experience when addressing client challenges,” said Hesketh, Marlin Hawk’s global managing partner.
Marlin Hawk has experience in financial services, healthcare, consumer products, entertainment, industrial, private equity, sports, and technology, according to its press release.
The company has offices in New York, Washington D.C., London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
