Faculty Profile: Cynthia Dow

Cynthia Dow leads the Legal Officers Practice at Russell Reynolds Associates, and is also a member of the Consumer and Board & CEO Sectors. Cynthia focuses on general counsel, chief legal officer, chief compliance officer and other Board and corporate governance assignments across a broad range of industries including legal, consumer, industrial, technology, energy, sports and entertainment, healthcare and financial services. Her clients range from Fortune 500 organizations to portfolio companies of leading private equity firms. Cynthia also works closely with the firm's Leadership & Succession Sector taking part in the assessment of legal officers across leading organizations and the delivery of talent benchmarking and succession planning projects. She is based in New York.

 

RECENT CLIENT EXPERIENCE

Cynthia has managed high profile searches to seek the General Counsel for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies in the technology, consumer, industrial, healthcare and financial services sectors, as well as numerous general counsel searches for global mid-cap, small-cap and private companies in these sectors. She recently led the search for the Chairman of a private-equity backed legal services company. She has also completed chief compliance officer and corporate secretary searches for a number of large, publicly traded companies in the consumer, healthcare, industrial and financial services sectors. Her additional work includes various searches for regional, deputy and assistant general counsels across multiple sectors.

 

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

Prior to joining Russell Reynolds Associates, Cynthia had a successful legal career as a corporate generalist, and labor and employment attorney. She practiced law for more than fifteen years, as an attorney with Baker Botts LLP in Dallas, the General Counsel to a technology company and as Vice President & Assistant General Counsel with global consumer products company, Cadbury Schweppes. During her legal career, Cynthia led legal departments, implemented company-wide corporate compliance programs, and represented and advised clients in a wide range of industries and subject matters, including labor and employment, regulatory matters, and corporate restructurings. Earlier in her career, Cynthia served as Senior Law Clerk to Chief Judge Jerry Buchmeyer of the Northern District of Texas.

 

ADDITIONAL PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Cynthia served on the Advisory Committee for Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers, an initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver. She is also a member of the New York and Texas State Bars, has trained as an executive coach and led the Board of Directors at the Dallas Contemporary art museum.

 

EDUCATION

Cynthia received her B.A. in government from Cornell University with distinction in all subjects and her J.D. from the Columbia School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an editor of the Journal of Law and Social Problems.