US student transport business Zum has hired JoAnn Covington as general counsel, replacing Lynn Miller in the role.
Covington joins from US robocar start-up Glydways, where she was chief legal officer. At Zum she will work with its management team and board to provide strategic legal advice and set governance policies.
Redwood City, California-based Zum provides tech-enabled school bus transportation so parents can track their kids’ travel to and from school in real time.
Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, said: “We’re delighted to welcome JoAnn to Zum as we continue to lead a national movement in modernising student transportation and improving grid resilience for communities nationwide.
“JoAnn brings invaluable expertise in transportation, technology and renewable energy – knowledge that aligns perfectly with our mission to deliver increased safety and reliability and to return energy from EV school buses back to the grid.”
Covington joins after just a year at Glydways, having previously been CLO at electric bus-maker Proterra before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
She also had in-house roles at ad tech business Rocket Fuel as GC and at video games giant Electronic Arts across a number of roles, including division counsel for the unit behind the SimCity games series – Maxis – and senior counsel for IP policy and practice.
She started her legal career in private practice at Fenwick & West.
Covington said: “I am excited to help Zum achieve its vision to provide safe, efficient, flexible school transportation. In this role, I can bring together my work revolutionising and reimagining public transportation as general counsel to clean transportation companies, and my extensive experience working with cutting-edge software companies to deliver on Zum’s promise for school districts, communities, drivers, children and families.”
Miller, meanwhile, was GC at Zum for just over two years. She was previously GC at autonomous trucking tech business Plus.AI and spent almost seven years in Tesla’s legal team, four of them as deputy GC. She also spent more than a decade at Apple as senior litigation manager.
Prior to her in-house career, Miller was of counsel at Fenwick & West and a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
In other recent transport-related moves, American Airlines in April hired Latham & Watkins partner Anthony Richmond as its new CLO, replacing Priya Aiyar who left the business in February.
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