Ascena Retail Group has appointed Wendy L Hufford as senior vice president and general counsel. Ms Hufford will oversee all legal matters for the company and will serve on the company’s leadership team, reporting to David Jaffe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. She joins the company from Boehringer Ingelheim USA, where she was the chief operating officer, legal department & vice president, US litigation, risk management & human resources. Ms Hufford is a mother of eight, and received a 2017 Working Mother of the Year award from Working Mother magazine.

Johnathan Short to retire in early 2019 after 14 years as general counsel at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a global exchanges and clearing houses company and provider of data and listings services. ICE has named Andrew Surdykowski as the company’s new general counsel to succeed Mr Short. Mr Surdykowski, currently the company’s senior vice president and associate general counsel, joined ICE’s legal team in 2005. In addition to Mr Surdykowski’s appointment, Elizabeth King, general counsel of the New York Stock Exchange, will add to her role that of ICE’s chief regulatory officer, overseeing the company’s global regulatory and legal affairs initiatives. Octavia Spencer, a member of ICE’s legal team since 2014, has been appointed as ICE’s Corporate Secretary.

Brian Brooks is the new chief legal officer at the digital currency wallet and platform Coinbase. Mr Brooks most recently served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Fannie Mae, where he led the company’s 200-person legal department and government relations group, and acted as a senior adviser to the CEO and board of directors. Previous legal lead  Mike Lempres will now focus on building the company’s government affairs program.

General Cannabis Corp, a service providers in the regulated cannabis industry, has hired trial attorney Brett Wendt as executive vice president and general counsel.  Mr Wendt joins from law firm Kutak Rock. During his tenure with Kutak Rock, Wendt touched every aspect of business and employment law including day-to-day counseling, training, administrative agency proceedings, labor and litigation.

Decision Resources Group (DRG), a provider of healthcare data, analytics, and insights products and services, has announced Michael Weiss is the new executive vice president and general counsel. He reports to DRG's CEO Jon Sandler and serves on DRG's executive management team. Mr Weiss brings to DRG over 20 years of experience in commercial law, with extensive experience in data privacy and security, corporate and regulatory compliance, risk management, and mergers and acquisitions.  Prior to joining DRG, Michael served as senior vice president, general counsel and chief privacy & compliance officer at Symphony Health Solutions.

Attorney Robert M Case has been appointed vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of the nonprofit RAND Corporation. Mr Case previously served as RAND's associate general counsel from 2013 to 2015. He has nearly two decades of legal experience, with specialties in government contracts and grants, commercial contracts, intellectual property rights and licensing, regulatory compliance, employment law and litigation.