Latest corporate secretary and general counsel moves.
1) Copper One, a major Canadian mining firm, has announced the appointment of Josh Van Deurzen as corporate secretary.
Van Deurzen is a corporate and securities lawyer who works as a legal consultant to various public and private companies in the resource-based sectors. Previously he practiced law at large law firms in New York and Toronto. He holds an MBA and a JD from the University of Toronto.
The appointment of Van Deurzen follows the resignation of Herrick Lau, who served as chief financial officer and corporate secretary.
2) Staples has appointed Cynthia Pevehouse to the post of senior vice president and general counsel, effective in early 2012.
Pevehouse will have global management responsibility for the company’s legal team and will report to Ron Sargent, Staples’ chairman and chief executive officer.
‘Cynthia brings a wealth of knowledge and skills to Staples,’ says Sargent. ‘With her extensive legal management experience and proven leadership, she will play an important part in supporting the company’s growth.’
Pevehouse joins the office products manufacturer from international law firm Steptoe & Johnson, where she served as senior counsel. Previously she served as executive vice president and general counsel at Allianz of America; prior to that she served in senior legal positions in the technology industry, including general counsel at Polycom and Ask Jeeves and a senior role at Compaq. She holds a JD from the Williamette University College of Law. 
3) Micrel, a global manufacturer of analog, high-bandwidth communications solutions, has appointed Colin Sturt, pictured left, to the post of vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary.
Sturt has been the company’s legal counsel since 2010 and has been responsible for all of its global legal affairs. He reports directly to president and chief executive Ray Zinn.
Sturt came to Micrel in 2010 with a substantial background in the semiconductor industry and holds extensive experience as an attorney.
Prior to joining Micrel he worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he served as a corporate attorney. Before that, he gained significant experience at National Semiconductor in the areas of organizational improvement, operational improvement, project management and operations support management. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA; he also earned master’s degrees in organizational behavior and international and area studies and graduated with a law degree from Columbia University Law School.
4) Wilton Resources, an exploration company based in Canada, has appointed Joel Jones as corporate secretary of the company.
Jones is a lawyer with the Canadian law firm Borden Ladner Gervais; before law school he worked as an equities trader in New York. His areas of practice and expertise are securities and capital markets, corporate finance and M&A, and his professional experience includes drafting corporate, securities and commercial documents, assisting clients with corporate and securities regulatory requirements, and takeover bids. He received his JD from the University of Calgary in 2006.
5) Fortress Minerals, a member of the Lundin Group of companies, recently reported that Antonietta Vodola has been appointed corporate secretary of the company.
Vodola serves as assistant corporate secretary at ShaMaran Petroleum, a Kurdistan-focused oil development and exploration firm, and has previously acted as corporate secretary for several TSX Venture Exchange-listed companies. From April 2005 to June 2011 she was a securities paralegal with the law firm of Gowling Lafleur Henderson, and prior to that she was a securities paralegal with Morton & Company and Mcorp Investment Group.
6) Switzerland-based Foster Wheeler has announced that Michelle Davies has been named general counsel of the international 
engineering and power group. She accepted the position after having served as acting general counsel since January 1, 2010. She, pictured right, assumes the role of general counsel in addition to her responsibility as corporate secretary, a role that she has filled since April of this year.
Davies, who has more than 25 years of experience in complex corporate legal matters, joined Foster Wheeler in 2008 as general counsel of the company’s subsidiary in the United Kingdom. Prior to that she had been with English Welsh & Scottish Railway, where she had been group legal director and company secretary and member of the executive committee. She also previously served as head of legal and regulatory affairs and company secretary for Nirex. She holds an LLB with honors from the University of Reading.
7) Intermec, a manufacturer and global supplier of automated identification and data capture equipment, has announced the appointment of Yukio Morikubo as senior vice president and general counsel.
Morikubo has more than 20 years of experience in law and business. He previously served as general counsel with various publicly listed companies, including most recently as general counsel and corporate secretary at Drugstore.com from November 2006 until its acquisition by Walgreens in 2011.
Prior to Drugstore.com he was general counsel at Advanced Digital Information, a NASDAQ-listed company, and the international division of AT&T Wireless. Before joining AT&T, Morikubo was a business and tax attorney with the law firm of Perkins Coie in Seattle, and was an auditor and tax accountant for KPMG in Honolulu, Hawaii.
‘Yukio’s extensive public company experience and business background further strengthen Intermec’s leadership team in critically important areas including intellectual property, corporate strategy and corporate governance,’ says Patrick Byrne, president and CEO of Intermec.
Morikubo earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Hawaii and his JD from Georgetown University.
8) Magellan Petroleum has appointed Milam Randolph Pharo to serve as vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of the Denver-based energy company.
Previously, Pharo held several positions at SM Energy from 1996 to 2010, including vice president – land and legal, and senior vice president and general counsel, and worked in private practice ... as an attorney specializing in oil and gas matters since 1977.
In announcing the appointment, Magellan Petroleum chief executive Tom Wilson says: ‘Pharo is a great addition to our senior management team headquartered in Denver. He has worked for over 30 years in the oil and gas industry, with an emphasis in the Rocky Mountains region. His experience as a former general counsel and in the land and legal elements of the business will be a great asset to both management and the board of directors.’
9) Global software manufacturer Openwave has appointed Elizabeth Rushforth to the position of vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, reporting to the company’s CFO, Anne Brennan.
Rushforth brings more than 15 years of legal expertise, with an emphasis on corporate law, securities, compliance and governance, to the role. She most recently served as Openwave’s associate general counsel, and as its interim general counsel from 2008 to 2009. She replaces Bruce Posey, the company’s general counsel since 2009, who has resigned from the position.
Before her stint at the California-based company, Rushforth worked as corporate counsel at Sunrise Telecom, a telecom management solution provider. She was also the founder of Kent Law Group and acted as outside general counsel for several start-ups in Silicon Valley.
Rushforth holds an undergraduate degree in management from California State Polytechnic University and a JD from the Washington University School of Law.
10) Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, an emerging biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutics to treat severe lipid disorders, has named Anne Marie Cook as senior vice president and general counsel.
Cook was most recently a partner with Boston-based law firm Choate Hall & Stewart.
There she represented life science companies in structuring and negotiating strategic transactions such as joint ventures, collaborations, M&A and intellectual property licenses. She also provided general legal support in connection with the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Prior to joining Choate, Cook was senior vice president, business and corporate development, and general counsel at ViaCell, and vice president and chief corporate counsel at Biogen Idec.
Texas-based NewComLink has appointed James Howicz as general counsel. Howicz, who most recently served as executive legal director at Dell, brings deep expertise in the legal, compliance and regulatory issues surrounding retail credit. In his new role he will be responsible for overseeing legal matters at NewComLink, including patents, trademarks and other corporate affairs. He will also advise the executive management team on corporate governance matters. He will report to CEO Suneet Paul.
Prior to joining Dell in 2002, Howicz was assistant general counsel for Wells Fargo Financial, where he provided legal oversight for state and national operations and led legal operational issues for credit card and private-label retail credit banks. He also served as assistant counsel at Discover Card, where he supported all aspects of business operation and oversaw corporate, banking, credit, contract, e-commerce and trademark law.
Howicz began his career as an attorney for CCH and a senior attorney for Mercury Finance. He received a JD from Tulane University and served as a clerk for the US Department of Justice before joining private practice.
