Appointments: January 2016

Douglas Chia

1) Douglas Chia is leaving Johnson & Johnson to join The Conference Board as executive director of The Conference Board Governance Center, effective February 2016. He will succeed Donna Dabney, who is retiring.

Chia presently serves as assistant general counsel and corporate secretary of Johnson & Johnson. Before joining Johnson & Johnson in 2005, he was assistant general counsel and corporate secretary of Tyco International. He has also practiced law with the firms Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Clifford Chance.

Chia has also held numerous leadership positions in the corporate governance field, including chair of the board of directors of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals and president of the Stockholder Relations Society of New York. He has also been a member of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Corporate Laws. Among other recognitions, he has been named Corporate Governance Professional of the Year by Corporate Secretary, one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance by Treasury & Risk, and one of the 100 Most Influential People in Corporate Governance and the Boardroom by NACD Directorship.

Chia is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Georgetown University Law Center.

Hugo Dubovoy

2) Grainger, a broad line supplier of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products to businesses and institutions, has appointed Hugo Dubovoy, Jr as vice president and corporate secretary. He will report to John Howard, Grainger’s senior vice president and general counsel. 

Dubovoy previously served as Grainger’s chief mergers and acquisitions (M&A) counsel, assisting in the company’s largest acquisition to date, Cromwell Group, and on numerous other projects. While advising Grainger’s board and senior management in his new role, he will continue to serve as chief M&A counsel and direct legal services for various support functions.   

Prior to Grainger, Dubovoy spent nearly 10 years in private practice as a partner at Baker & McKenzie and an associate at Skadden Arps Slate, Meagher & Flom, representing Fortune 500 clients in negotiated and contested public and private M&A transactions and securities offerings and advising clients on directors’ duties, shareholder activism, proxy contests, and other corporate control and governance matters.

Dubovoy received his law degree from The University of Chicago Law School and his BA from Loyola University Chicago.

Cyrus Amir-Mokri

3) Cyrus Amir-Mokri has joined JPMorgan Chase as general counsel for its corporate and investment banking division.

He previously worked as an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which he rejoined for a year after serving for three years as the US Department of the Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. At the Treasury Department, Amir-Mokri was responsible for developing and coordinating policies on issues affecting financial institutions.

Before taking that role, he served as senior counsel to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and as the agency’s deputy representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Prior to joining the government, Amir-Mokri worked at Skadden Arps on complex securities and antitrust litigation. He received his BA from Harvard University, his Ph.D from the University of Chicago and his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

Thomas Spellman

4) Johnson & Johnson has named Thomas J Spellman III as corporate secretary, succeeding Douglas Chia, effective February 1. He will report to Liz Forminard, worldwide vice president of corporate governance.  

Spellman has served as vice president, law for Janssen Research & Development since 2012, providing strategic counsel and legal services to the pharmaceuticals R&D senior leadership team while also serving on the management board of Janssen Biotech since 2009. In 2013 and 2014, he led general legal support for Johnson & Johnson Innovation and assumed additional responsibility in 2015 for Crucell, JLABS and Janssen Healthcare Innovation, as well as oversight of the general lawyers dedicated to pharmaceuticals R&D and related business activities. 

Joining Johnson & Johnson in 2000 as a member of the business development group, Spellman served as assistant corporate secretary of the entire company from 2002 to  2006.

After a stint as general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer of Alpharma between 2007 and 2009, he rejoined Johnson & Johnson when Alpharma was acquired. He was also a lawyer at Warner-Lambert Company between 1995 and 2000, and began his legal career as an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Spellman holds a BA from Holy Cross College and a JD from Cornell Law School.

Sharon Segev

5) LifeLock, which provides proactive identity theft protection services for consumers and consumer risk management services for enterprises, has named Sharon Segev as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Segev joins LifeLock from Elo Touch Solutions, where she served as vice president of corporate development, general counsel and secretary, in charge of strategic transactions, corporate governance, compliance, regulatory issues, and other legal operations. Before moving to Elo Touch Solutions in 2012, she was vice president, associate general counsel and assistant secretary at Cadence Design Systems, a publicly traded electronic design automation firm. During her seven years at Cadence, she also headed the company’s M&A function and the business practices and corporate group within the legal department.

Prior to Cadence, she was an attorney in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s San Francisco office and began her legal career at Herzog, Fox & Needham in Tel Aviv, Israel. She holds degrees in law and accounting from Tel Aviv University and is admitted to both the California and Israeli Bars.

Norman Brothers

6) Norman M Brothers, Jr has been named senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at UPS. He will report directly to UPS CEO David Abney and will also join the UPS Management Committee, the company’s senior-most leadership group.

Coming to UPS in 2000 as an attorney in the corporate legal department, he most recently served as the company’s vice president and deputy general counsel. His diverse legal experience includes leading practice areas such as litigation, corporate, business development, regulatory compliance and international. He also has managed the global privacy team and the office of the corporate secretary. Before joining UPS, he was on active duty as a captain in the US Army, where he served as a military prosecutor in the US Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, He has also worked at the international law firm King & Spalding. 

Brothers received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and law degree from Emory University School of Law. He serves as chair of the board for The Georgia Justice Project and is a member of Reach for Excellence’s board.