Austin So Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, StoneMor Partners

StoneMor is the nation’s second-largest deathcare provider, with 300 cemeteries and 100 funeral homes in 27 states and Puerto Rico. StoneMor went public in 2004, but it did not have any in-house attorneys for 12 years. When So joined StoneMor in July 2016, he immediately set aggressive goals for 2017, which turned out to be an extremely challenging year for the company. So’s goals included building an in-house legal department from scratch; appropriately shifting work to the in-house legal department; reducing legal spend and claim payouts; taking on oversight of underperforming and problematic departments; and developing a plan to achieve full compliance with the various laws and regulations in the deathcare industry.