Speaking Your CFO's Language

Jacqueline (“Jaci”) Lee represents America’s largest franchisee in a wide range of commercial, real estate, employment, and tort disputes for over 2,300 restaurants nationwide, and provides the Company with strategic counsel on contract, risk management, corporate development, intellectual property, and employment issues. She is an experienced trial lawyer who has managed all aspects of litigation and has played a lead role in jury and bench trials, as well as arbitration. Jaci has written and spoken extensively on litigation strategy, intellectual property protection and enforcement, and diversity in the legal profession, and her contributions have been recognized by a number of legal publications, including The Legal 500 United States and Northern California Super Lawyers. In 2015, Jaci was named to Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 2015 “Women of Influence” list. Prior to joining Flynn Restaurant Group in 2018, Jaci was a partner in Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office.

Liz has built and managed Legal Operations teams in various industries in both public and private companies over her 20 year career. She excels in global project management and business reengineering, with particular expertise in process improvement, change management, cross-functional collaboration and team building, but her true passion is helping others find their own strengths and talents and harness them for the value of all.

Before joining UpLevel, Liz served as the Senior Director of Legal Operations at WeWork. Prior to WeWork, Liz served as Director of Legal Operations at a diverse range of companies, including UnitedLex, DXC Technology, Becton Dickinson, and MetLife. She also worked at Citigroup as Manager, Strategy and M&A.

Liz holds a BA in Political Science and Journalism from Rutgers University, is certified in Lean Six Sigma and fluent in Spanish. She is based in New Jersey.

Ginny Johnson joined Aspen Aerogels in May 2022 and serves as Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary. Ms. Johnson has 20 years of legal experience spanning both private practice and in-house executive leadership roles in the financial services and energy industries. Prior to joining Aspen, Ms. Johnson was General Counsel of Schneider Electric North America, and before that, she served as Senior Vice President, Head of Corporate Legal, Associate General Counsel & Secretary of Global Atlantic Financial Group (f/k/a Goldman Sachs Reinsurance Group).

Prior to moving in-house as corporate counsel, Ms. Johnson was a partner in the Litigation Department of Prince Lobel Tye LLP in Boston, and before that, she was an Associate in the Litigation/Regulatory Department, Securities/Corporate Governance Group, in the New York and Boston offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

Ms. Johnson holds a Juris Doctor from the Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Boston University.

Shawn is the General Counsel for the family office that manages the assets, business enterprises and nonprofits of the Smith family (Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, Jaden Smith, Trey Smith, and their family circle), based on the principle of Improving Lives. The Smith Family Circle serves as the command center for the family and centralizes everything from entity management, financial planning, bill-pay, and tax filing to foundation management.

Shawn is responsible for strategically overseeing all legal functions of the Smith family-owned businesses - such as MSFT Rep Holdings (fashion), Spooky Girl (touring), Young Spike, Inc (touring), Treyball, and 100% Womon Content (loan-outs) - and their personal and philanthropic interests - ownership in Westbrook (production), Three Six Zero (management), the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, and I Love You Restaurant (nonprofit) - including but not limited to new business development, contracts and contracting processes, litigation and regulatory matters, compliance, vendor negotiations, M&A and related matters, intellectual property maintenance and enforcement, publishing, music publishing and administration, touring, merchandising, sponsorship and endorsements, talent and production, television, modeling, talent representation, content creation, content monetization, corporate law, and governance-related matters as well as company policies related to the same.

Christy Freer is the General Counsel of Inspiration Mobility, a DC-based investment and infrastructure company partnering with fleet businesses to finance, build, own, and operate real assets to enable their rapid transition to electric vehicle fleets.

Before Inspiration, Christy served as the DGC and Lead Corporate Counsel for Plaid, a late-stage fintech company with a mission to unlock financial freedom for everyone. She covered governance, finance, equity compensation, M&A and investments at Plaid, and is widely viewed as a strategic business partner and mentor to others in the finance industry.

Christy previously was Counsel in Mayer Brown's Banking & Finance practice group, where she led development of the firm's capabilities in Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing and served as a key client relationship manager and leader of the NextGen initiative, fostering networking opportunities for young lawyers and their in-house counterparts. Prior to her time at Mayer Brown, Christy spent 7 years at Capital One, where she led legal support for the Treasury department, including coverage of secured and unsecured financing, M&A financing, capital markets disclosure, derivatives and portfolio management. Christy also served as a leader on Capital One's pro bono committee. She spent the first 8 years of her legal career in big law at Jones Day and at Orrick, working on a wide range of transactional and governance matters in the finance industry, with specialized expertise in asset-backed securitization.