Geoffrey J. Kelly, general counsel and senior vice president of The Coca-Cola Co., keeps a low profile, but his proactive stand on diversity in the legal profession has attracted national attention.
In the 3 1/2 years since the Australian-born attorney became GC, Kelly has created a legal team that more accurately reflects the population — a third of the U.S. lawyers identify themselves as ethnic minorities. He has helped direct the development of a supplier diversity program that spent nearly $1 million with minority- and women-owned businesses in 2007. In 2008, he required his outside counsel to measure their own diversity numbers and report them in a competition named the Living the Values Award, a process that has already begun again for next year. And the Coke legal department helps inner city high school students get a taste of lawyering with a Street Law program held in their classrooms and at the company’s North Avenue headquarters.
