Recent personnel moves at Marsh & McLennan, Microsoft and Prudential
Alex Cestero
1) Alex Cestero has been appointed senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at Frank's International, a tubular services provider for oil and gas producers. He will report directly to President and CEO Gary Luquette.
Cestero most recently served as vice president, co-general counsel and corporate secretary at Weatherford International. Prior to joining Weatherford in 2013, he was vice president, general counsel, secretary, and chief compliance officer of Lufkin Industries, where he developed the global legal function and helped lead five international acquisitions. Before joining Lufkin, he served as senior vice president, general counsel, secretary, and chief compliance officer at Seahawk Drilling, a spinoff of Pride International (now part of Ensco).
Cestero began his career at the international law firms Vinson and Elkins and Bracewell & Giuliani before spending several years in the legal department of Pride International, taking on more responsibility to eventually become deputy general counsel.
He has a BA and an MBA from Rice University and a JD from Stanford University Law School.
Brian Martin
2) Juniper Networks has named Brian Martin as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, effective October 5. He will also serve on the executive leadership team, reporting directly to Juniper CEO Rami Rahim. Martin succeeds Mitch Gaynor, who is leaving his position after 11 years with the company but will continue to serve through the transition until mid-October.
Martin has nearly 20 years of corporate legal experience in the technology industry and most recently served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at KLA-Tencor Corp. He also spent 10 years in senior legal positions at Sun Microsystems.
Martin’s extensive knowledge of intellectual property and patent law will enable him to ‘play a pivotal role in Juniper’s innovation initiatives,’ Juniper’s CEO, Rami Rahim, said in a news release. As general counsel, he will also lead the government affairs and environmental health, safety and security functions.
He has a BA in economics from the University of Rochester and a JD from the Law School at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Carey Roberts
3) Carey Roberts has been appointed as chief compliance officer at Marsh & McLennan, succeeding Scott Gilbert, who has been named to the newly created position of chief information officer. In addition to her new responsibilities, she will continue to serve as the company's deputy general counsel and corporate secretary.
Roberts joined the global professional services company in September 2014 from Covington & Burling, where she had been a partner since 2005, and prior to that an associate since 1997.
She earned a BA in English literature from the University of Chicago and a JD from The George Washington University Law School.
Brad Smith
4) Microsoft Corp has named general counsel Brad Smith as president and chief legal officer. He is the first companywide president at Microsoft since Rick Beluzzo resigned in 2002.
Joining the software giant in 1993, Smith has served as general counsel and secretary since 2002, and as executive vice president of legal and corporate affairs since 2011. As part of Microsoft’s senior legal leadership team, he played a key role in implementing the antitrust consent decree established in 2001 with the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Prior to Microsoft, Smith was an associate and then partner at Covington and Burling.
In an e-mail to employees CEO Satya Nadella said he wants Smith to play a bigger role in ‘strengthening our external relationships and representing the company publicly,’ as well as working on initiatives regarding privacy, security, accessibility, environmental sustainability and digital inclusion. He said Smith’s current leadership team will assume more day-to-day legal responsibilities as a result of his new appointment.
Smith has a JD from the Columbia University School of Law and studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.
Timothy Harris
5) Timothy Harris has been appointed executive vice president and general counsel at Prudential Financial, effective October 1. He will succeed Susan Blount, who is retiring from Prudential in January 2016 after 30 years at Prudential, the last decade of which has been as general counsel. Harris will report to Chairman and CEO John Strangfeld.
Strangfeld praised Blount for her sound judgment, expertise and leadership over three decades, during which she worked closely with the board on Prudential’s historic demutualization in 2001 and many complex issues that followed its becoming a publicly held company.
Harris, who joined Prudential in 1988, was appointed deputy general counsel and chief legal officer for Prudential’s US businesses in 2008. He was named chief operating officer of law, compliance, business ethics and external affairs in 2014. He has also served as chief investment counsel at the company. Before coming to Prudential, he was an associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York.
Harris has a BA in government from Georgetown University and JD from Georgetown University Law Center.
6) Visterra, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has appointed John Weidenbruch as general counsel and secretary.
With more than two decades of legal affairs and policy experience in the biotechnology industry, Weidenbruch most recently served as vice president and chief global commercial counsel at Biogen. Prior to joining Biogen in 2010, he was executive vice president, general counsel, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer at Idenix Pharmaceuticals from 2006 to 2010. Before Idenix, he was general counsel at Abraxis BioScience and also spent more than ten years at Amgen in the legal and healthcare policy departments.
Weidenbruch has a BA from Loyola College and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.
