Appointments: August 2014

Jeffrey J Woodbury

1) Exxon Mobil’s board of directors has elected Jeffrey J Woodbury as vice president of investor relations and secretary, effective September 1. Woodbury, who has served as Exxon’s vice president of safety, security, health and environment, since 2011, joined the energy behemoth in 1983 as a reservoir engineer in Los Angeles. He has held various technical, planning, operations and management positions with a range of divisions within the company.

In 2001, Woodbury became president of ExxonMobil Canada and production manager for Eastern Canada before moving to Moscow in 2003, where he was president for ExxonMobil Russia. In 2005, Woodbury was appointed vice president for engineering at ExxonMobil Production Company and in 2007 as vice president for LNG infrastructure for ExxonMobil Development Company. He was named executive vice president of ExxonMobil Development Company in 2009.

Woodbury graduated from the University of Southern California with both a bachelors and masters of science degree in petroleum engineering. He is board chairman of the National Safety Council, is on the board of councilors of the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Dane Drobny

2) Groupon has named Dane Drobny as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary,  while current GC David Schellhase will remain with the Internet commerce company as a strategic advisor. 

Drobny comes to Groupon from Sears Holding Corp, where he was senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. He was previously a partner at the international law firm Winston & Strawn. Drobny has a BA degree from Colgate University and earned a JD from Washington University School of Law.

Michael Callahan

3) Michael Callahan has been appointed as vice president, general counsel and secretary at LinkedIn, where he has taken over the legal responsibilities from former GC Erika Rottenberg.

Callahan joins the business and social networking company from Auction.com, where he served as executive vice president, chief legal officer and secretary from January 2013 until July 2014. Before that, he spent 13 years as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary at Yahoo, where his  achievements included navigating a potential hostile takeover bid from Microsoft Corp and subsequently initiating a 10-year partnership between the two companies.

Early in his career, Callahan was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for a few years. He earned an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and his legal degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

William Leatherberry

4) National Mortgage Insurance Corp (known as national MI), a subsidiary of NMI Holdings, has named William ‘Bill’ Leatherberry as general counsel. Leatherberry was previously executive vice president, chief legal officer, general counsel and secretary at Century Aluminum, which he joined in 2005.

Leatherberry began his career as a corporate associate with the law firm Jones Day.  He earned a BA in business management and an MBA from the University of Texas, and his JD from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Marcia Backus

5) Marcia Backus, who joined Occidental Petroleum last October as vice president and general counsel, has added the roles of corporate secretary and chief compliance officer to her duties.

Before joining Occidental, Backus was a partner at Vinson & Elkins, heading the law firm’s energy transactions/projects practice group, representing industry and private equity companies in domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity investments, project development and other energy transactions.

She was ranked among the leading business lawyers in oil, gas and energy by both Chambers USA and Chambers Global, and was named 2012 Lawyer of the Year in mergers and acquisitions by The Best Lawyers in America. She served in several leadership positions at Vinson & Elkins, including the firm wide management committee, co-chair of the corporate department and as chair of the partnership admissions committee.

Jane C Sherburne

6) Teledyne Technologies has appointed Jane C Sherburne to its board of directors, raising the number of board members to 11. Sherburne is the former senior executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of The Bank of New York Mellon, which she left in June.

Sherburne has been a principal of Sherburne PLLC, a legal consulting firm providing strategic advice in crisis environments and in connection with regulatory policy developments that she had formed prior to joining BNY Mellon in May 2010. She served as senior executive vice president and corporate secretary of Wachovia Corp from June 2008 to January 2009, during which time Wachovia merged with Wells Fargo & Company. From December 2006 to June 2008, she was general counsel of Citigroup’s global consumer business, after first joining Citigroup in July 2001 as a deputy general counsel.

Sherburne also served as Special Counsel to the President in the Clinton White House. She chairs the board of the National Women’s Law Center, is a member of the executive committee of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the New York Lawyers for Public Interest.

She holds bachelor’s and masters’ degrees from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she was editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.