Around the house

Las Vegas Sands has named former Time Inc general counsel Lawrence ‘Lon’ Jacobs as its new executive vice president and global general counsel. Mr Jacobs joins the casino and resort operator after overseeing a period of considerable disruption at Time Inc, in which a companywide reorganisation resulted in the layoffs of over 100 employees. Prior to his time at Time Inc, Mr Jacobs undertook a brief stint as EVP and GC of New York-based Empire State Development following a 15-year in-house career at News Corp, where he eventually held the role of senior EVP and group general counsel. He replaces former Las Vegas Sands global GC Ira Raphaelson, who had held the role since 2011.

Meanwhile, S&P Global has announced the appointment of Steve Kemps as the company’s new executive vice president and general counsel. Mr Kemps joins the market intelligence giant from Quanta Services, where he also served as EVP and general counsel. Previously, he has also run legal departments as GC at both Hess Retail Corporation and Dean Foods Company. A statement from S&P Global described Mr Kemps as an ‘essential addition’ to the company’s legal team.

Global location data management leader Yext has named former Millennial Media legal boss Ho Shin as its next executive vice president and general counsel. As general counsel and chief privacy officer at Millennial, Mr Shin played an instrumental role guiding the company through its international expansion, an initial public offering and its eventual sale to Verizon/AOL. He has also previously served as general counsel at Advertising.com, and as a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory, where he advised on matters involving data privacy and integrity.

Google-backed phone security startup Pindrop Security has picked Clarrisa Cerda to serve as its first ever general counsel. Ms Cerda joins from listed identity theft protection company Lifestock, where she held the title of chief legal strategist. She has also previously worked as a White House lawyer under the Clinton administration and as a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons), as well as working in-house at a variety of tech sector companies. As GC of Pindrop, Ms Cerda will help guide the company through the evolving regulatory landscape around phone fraud technologies.

Finally, the University of Minnesota has tapped Doug Peterson to become its next general counsel. Mr Peterson is moving in-house to the university from Stinson Leonard Street, a top 100 law firm with an office in Minneapolis. There, Mr Peterson’s practice focused on complex business litigation and white-collar defence, having previously served as an Assistant US Attorney for the District of Minnesota. He will commence as GC next month pending approval at a meeting of the university’s Board of Regents, replacing incumbent GC Bill Donahue who is retiring on 1 September.