Around the house

Kimberly-Clark Corporation has appointed Jeffrey Melucci as senior vice president and general counsel from 1 September. Reporting to chairman and CEO Thomas Falk, Mr Melucci will be responsible for all legal and governmental affairs for the company and will serve on the company's executive leadership team. He succeeds Tom Mielke who will retire from the same role after 29 years with the company. Mr Melucci, who joined the company in 2013, has led Kimberly-Clark's global legal operations, served as the company's corporate secretary, and been responsible for leading the international legal team. Prior to joining Kimberly-Clark, he held a series of general counsel and operational roles for General Electric. Kimberly-Clark operates in more than 175 countries with well-known brands of health, hygiene and well-being products such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend.

Tom Mielke is retiring from Kimberly-Clark which he joined in 1988. During his 29-year career with Kimberly-Clark, he held a range of legal leadership positions, including chief patent counsel and chief counsel for the company's north Atlantic consumer business prior to being named general counsel in 2007. As the leader of the company's legal organisation, he not only served as a strategic advisor with a focus on driving value for the business but also championed the company's diversity initiatives. He will retire in early 2018 following a transition period.

Credit Karma, a venture-backed personal finance company,  has named Susannah Wright  as its first general counsel. Previously head of compliance at SolarCity and Tesla, Ms Wright also joins Credit Karma's executive committee. As general counsel, Wright oversees all legal matters at Credit Karma including corporate, regulatory, consumer protection, compliance and government affairs. She brings more than 15 years of legal experience to Credit Karma, most recently as deputy general counsel at SolarCity (acquired by Tesla). She was previously a senior assistant district attorney in Atlanta, Georgia. Ms Wright was also a lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher where she focused on government investigations, crisis management and data privacy. Prior to that, she worked at Alston & Bird. 

Facility solutions provider ABM today has appointed Andrea Newborn as general counsel and corporate secretary from 5 July 2017. Ms Newborn will lead ABM’s legal team and will focus on supporting the strategic and operational direction of the company, aligned to the company’s 2020 Vision. She will be responsible for all legal, compliance, and governance affairs for ABM and will work closely with all areas of the business as a member of the executive leadership team. Most recently, Ms Newborn served as general counsel for TravelClick, a business-to-business global provider of data and cloud-based solutions to the hospitality industry. Previously, she was general counsel for The Reader’s Digest Association.

In the UK, Funke Abimbola, general counsel of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, has been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, which was unveiled on Friday 16 June. Ms Abimbola has been honoured with an MBE for her services to diversity in the legal profession and to young people. She became general counsel of Roche in December 2015.