Senior Managing Legal Director
Dell Technologies
Dear ACC Members and Friends,
The ACC Northeast Chapter has taken the summer in stride – this season has been one to socialize with our in-house peers and sponsors and develop professional relationships and connections. Summer is also a time to re-energize with family and friends, and our Chapter has seized several opportunities to bring our members together for networking and community building, including during a family friendly outing. For the first time in our history, this summer we reached 1,500 members – quite an accomplishment, and a manifestation of the strength of our community! Now is the time to develop deeper connections, and I encourage you to consider how the ACC can help you realize the power of deeper connections in the months to come.
In June, we hosted members from our general counsel / chief legal officer community at the Tuscan Kitchen for our Curated Cocktails & Conversation event, sponsored by Mintz. The dinner and discussion focused on current events facing our general counsel and chief legal officer members, their companies, and their companies’ boards. Attendees explored the management of board and executive team departures, board succession planning, emerging legal and regulatory risks, outside counsel relationship and budget management, and technological and processes innovation to modernize the legal department. Participants experienced the power of deeper connections with their legal executive peer group. We look forward to future GC/CLO events this fall.
In mid-July, we returned to the Envoy Hotel, where we hosted our annual Summerfest celebration – our largest in-person networking event and most popular event as a chapter. This year’s event did not disappoint, and the rain even held off to enable a perfect evening of discussion among members and sponsors. We also conducted a drawing for two passes to the ACC Annual Meeting, and we will notify the winners very soon. At the end of July, our members traveled to Worcester to watch the Worcester Red Sox take the field at Polar Park. This family friendly event was a wonderful opportunity for members and their families to come together to celebrate summer, experience America’s pastime with a WooSox win over Buffalo, and to connect with each other.
Our Chapter also launched Membership Local Lunch Meet-Ups, which offer members a more intimate way to interact and connect in a small group setting, at a convenient time and place. We know that to meet our members’ needs, we need to meet members where they are located. So far, our Chapter board members have hosted local lunches in various locations throughout Massachusetts, and in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. These lunches will continue into the fall, and we look forward to seeing you at a location near you. We also recently secured licenses to the web-based networking platform RandomCoffee, which we are leveraging to enable individualized virtual networking meet-ups. Our RandomCoffee initiative will enable members to randomly match with other interested members to network and engage.
We round out our summer season of socializing and connecting with NextGen, Perennial, Women’s Committee, and Affinity Bar events in September. Our NextGen group (tailored for members who have less than ten years of experience in an in-house setting) will connect at KINGS Seaport. Our Perennial group, which is a newly formed committee focused on engaging with our most experienced and longest standing members, will connect in Waltham at the Painted Burro. Our Women’s Committee, which works to provide a supportive environment for members who identify as women will host its monthly coffee chat. Finally, our DEI Committee will co-host an Affinity Bar Mixer. These are great opportunities to develop meaningful connections and to learn more about the work that various ACC Northeast Chapter committees perform for the benefit of our membership.
The 2024 ACC Annual Meeting, the largest annual gathering of in-house counsel, is set to kick off on October 6th in Nashville, Tennessee. There is still time to plan your trip, to join more than 2,500 fellow ACC members for this global conference, and to experience the cutting edge in legal topics facing in-house counsel. Whether you are navigating complex legal challenges or driving strategic decisions with long term impact for your organization, the ACC Annual Meeting has something for everyone. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain transformative knowledge, focus on professional development, and network for deeper professional connections. We hope to see you in Nashville in October.
Sincerely,
James Coughlin
President, ACC Northeast Chapter
