Gindi Vincent worries. Moreover, she worries in public and writes about it.
You’d think her job would be enough to puzzle over. Even her title is a heavy lift. She’s General Counsel for Integrated Supply Chain and Procurement for Honeywell’s Energy and Sustainability Solutions. Any position bearing the phrase “supply chain” has to come with its own set of headaches these days. But we’ll get to that.
Vincent has a website where she writes about her worries. She worries aloud about her weight. She leans into her faith. She worries about being too busy for her kids: three teens — triplets, no less — who require their own logistics and supply chains. She worries about how she will busy herself when they depart for college four years out. Perhaps needless to say, she is a self-described “Type-A Planner Chick.”
As it happens, Vincent was in the midst of a 32-week diet she had plotted for herself while she led the legal side of Honeywell’s $670 million acquisition of Compressor Controls Corporation, which closed last summer on June 30. And for that (not the diet) Vincent, Honeywell and their outside counsel Arnold & Porter have been named a finalist for M&A Transaction of the Year by the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Houston Chapter and The Texas Lawbook.
Gindi Vincent was instrumental in Honeywell’s $670 million acquisition of Compressor Controls Corporation, which closed last year.
CCC is a multinational provider of turbomachinery control and optimization processes. From offices located in major oil and gas markets around the world, the company produces control hardware, software and services of primary importance to LNG, gas processing, refining and petrochemical production.
Vincent was involved in every stage of the process, according to Dionne Hamilton, general counsel for Honeywell’s Smart Energy and Thermal Solutions. In her nomination of Honeywell’s acquisition for the award, Hamilton said Vincent’s involvement “included engagement from the first step of the NDA all the way post-closing to integrate CCC into Honeywell’s Process Solutions business.”
Moreover, Vincent began her involvement in the transaction as assistant general counsel for Honeywell Process Solutions. By the time the deal closed, Vincent had been named to her current position as a Honeywell GC. So, what began in the oft-mundane business of document shuffling became a launchpad for the skillset required of a lawyer/mother-of-triplets/Type-A Planner Chick.
“As the business lawyer, I was responsible for understanding CCC’s business,” said Vincent. That included oversight of document reviews, contract analysis, as well as the coordination of various areas of concern: compliance, real estate, environmental and IP.
“When Honeywell’s M&A corporate lawyer moved to another company, I got even more involved in the day-to-day aspects of the deal, flagging risks and liabilities, collaborating with outside counsel on the commercial documents and compliance reviews and approvals. Then, after the deal closed, I had the opportunity to lead the legal integration efforts as well.”
In describing the deal, she waxes geeky.
“It was such an interesting deal because CCC matches so beautifully with HPS — CCC had best-in-class offerings for turbomachinery controls as well as a huge installed base. We’d previously worked together on projects where CCC had a piece of the technology and HPS had the remainder of the controls for the end customer.”
“Not only would the deal give Honeywell the most comprehensive asset performance management capability, it structurally was a great fit. They were organized much like HPS; they had their regional structures of Americas, EMEA and APAC which matched HPS, and their corporate culture was entrepreneurial and warm.”
“I had the opportunity to spend time at their headquarters in Des Moines over the course of the integration, and their team was welcoming, energetic and engaged,” she recalls. “I loved getting to know the people even more than managing all [that] paper.”
Church and Five States
Gindi Eckel Vincent was born Temple, Texas, circa 1973. Her dad was a church pastor. Her mom was a special education teacher. Her name (pronounced JIN-dēe) derives from the mudflap of an 18-wheeler.
“My dad was a preacher, so the names of children tend to be Biblical. My brother is Caleb,” she says. “But my parents were driving and noticed that the mudflaps on a truck in front of them had the picture of a woman with the name ‘Gindy.’ They thought it was cute, so they changed the ‘Y’ to an ‘I’ and named me ‘Gindi.'”
Within three weeks of her birth, her family was on the move to Los Angeles.
“We moved around a ton, and I’ve lived in California, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee,” Vincent says. It was in college, at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, where she would find her way to a law career.
At Ouachita she was pre-med when she ran headlong into a life-changing experience: she made a ‘B’ in botany. Botany.
“I overreacted and changed majors,” she said. “While shifting around to several options (math, teaching), I had a great professor that suggested law.”
She ultimately graduated magna cum laude in history and political science and made her way to law school at Vanderbilt, where she gained her JD in 1998. After graduation, she landed a job at Cantey & Hanger, where she started with the intent to become a litigator, until she realized what that might mean.
“I hated all the animosity in litigation, and while working on an environmental litigation case I saw the cool science options of working in environmental law,” she said. After four years as a litigation associate at Cantey, she moved on; this time as a senior associate at Campbell George & Strong. During her four years there, she made the transition from litigation to the practice that would inform her decisions to come: regulatory and environmental law.
It was while she was at Campbell George that she met Bray Vincent at a Jackopierce concert. They were, as she describes it on her blog, “Both off of relationships that spring and not particularly interested in impressing the other one. Which is probably why we impressed each other so much.” That was in December 2003.
She figured something serious was happening between them when, in February 2005, his sister asked the two of them to be godparents to her son. When she asked him whether it made sense, since they were not yet engaged, Bray’s answer was both definite and oblique: “I know it feels like putting the cart before the horse, but there is a horse.”
In May 2005, she had left Campbell George for a job as counsel with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to focus on her regulatory practice.
It was Halloween weekend when Bray Vincent proposed. He was dressed as an oil rig operator, she as “Miss Halloween 2005.”
Spring turned into Fall. On her 32nd birthday she received a diamond necklace, but still no proposal. As she had when she received that “B” in Botany at Ouachita, she began to doubt the path she was on. Then came Hurricane Rita.
His family’s farm was destroyed. Badly damaged also was the jewelry store in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where — unknown to her — he had taken the diamond from his mother’s original engagement ring to be integrated into one for her. It was at a Halloween party where he, costumed as an oil rig worker, asked her to marry him. (“I would never have proposed when you were expecting it,” she says he later confided). It does not rise to spoiler alert-level to note that she said, “Yes.”
By Monday, barely two days later, Type-A Planner Chick was in full control. As he flew to South Dakota on a hunting trip, she tried a pro bono case for a Hurricane Katrina family that made the 6 o’clock news. In between she booked a church for their wedding and Houstonian Hotel for the reception for May 6, the first Saturday morning when both were available.
From Bed Rest to In-House
By 2012, Vincent decided to take her practice in-house. The reason?
“Triplets!” she explains. The “duh” is mercifully silent.
In October 2009, after a 33-week pregnancy that required meticulous nutrition, almost constant medical monitoring and ultimately near-absolute bedrest, their triplets were born — two boys and a girl. Or rather a boy, a girl, then another boy. She still refers to them, lovingly, as “A,” “B” and “C.”
“I returned to work in January 2010. After a couple of years, I didn’t feel I could work the hours required (read: weekends) and do business development while being a present mom,” she explains, perhaps needlessly.
Premium Subscriber Q&A: Gindi Vincent discusses topics personal and professional, including what she looks for, and expects from, in outside counsel.
For two years she continued to work at Pillsbury, attempting to balance the unpredictability of rearing triplets with the predictable unpredictabilities of Big Firm law. By the time her three had turned three in late 2012, she was actively seeking a new career in-house.
Before the New Year, she had interviewed for three different in-house positions. She joined ExxonMobil in February 2013.
“Of course, I had no clue how insane in-house life would be, too!” she confides.
She was at Exxon for more than four years, where she worked in a variety counsel positions, at first involving environment and safety, then as commercial project counsel, advising its joint ventures on a broad and eclectic menu of issues: international trade, compliance, HR, governmental affairs, regulatory, supply chains and third-party contracting.
But the 33-mile commute to and from work became a grind. She wondered if it was worth the time away from her family. Before she could seriously consider leaving Exxon, however, Covid placed any chance of change “on the back burner,” as she describes it in a December 2021 blog post.
But then came cancer; specifically, a breast cancer diagnosis followed by radiation treatments followed by a new resolve:
So, when I finished radiation and celebrated Easter, I started asking God if it was time to go. There were three things I was looking for (in addition to all the basics like wonderful people, competitive comp, etc.): a leadership role, a diverse industry, and closer to home.
The only job I interviewed for had all three.
That job was at Honeywell.
The Vincents in 2013, in the first of a series of family portraits they take each July 4 at the same bench swing on their family farm in Louisiana. The children are (from left, as Vincent describes them) Will “The Thinker”; Sam “The Man of Action” and Lilli “Like, whatever…Can I leave now?”
“At Exxon, I had the incredible opportunity to be the attorney for a huge JV because I glimpsed it when working on their environmental issues, so I moved to major projects. And then, after 2020 — between COVID, our family farm being decimated by Hurricane Laura and a breast cancer diagnosis — I decided my career needed to bring me closer to home,” she told The Lawbook.
It was also the case that the demands on family weren’t mitigated by in-house opportunities.
“I commuted an hour and wasn’t managing a team. Then the AGC position at Honeywell came calling; they were across the street from me, would facilitate moving into a new sector of industrial technology and allowed me to lead the Americas team of lawyers for Honeywell Process Solutions. So, I jumped. But I loved my time at Exxon,” she said.
Vincent started at Honeywell in December 2021. With nearly nine years at ExxonMobil, she was now seasoned in the demands of in-house life, but she soon found that there were cultural adjustments to be made.
“Honeywell and Exxon have very different corporate cultures. Honeywell is in the tech business, and you have to move at the speed of light,” she said. “I move fast, act fast and think fast, but this pace has definitely pushed even me. I went from being an oil and gas lawyer to a tech lawyer, and there are different risks you have to predict.”
“Plus, 18 months into my business AGC position with HPS, I had the great opportunity to become the general counsel for a global business Integrated supply chain. This was another brand-new legal area for me to learn,” she said. “The way I get up to speed fast is to spend time with the executive team understanding their biggest areas of concern and seeing how the law department can partner to help solve them.”
That was exactly her tack in the decision to hire Arnold & Porter as outside counsel support for the CCC acquisition.
“Our M&A business team in Charlotte hired A&P, and I just had the good fortune to have them as our M&A counsel,” Vincent said. “A&P worked tirelessly on this case — from the due diligence kickoff early in 2023, all the way through to the June 30th closing.”
“The team was led by Tracy Belton who was pregnant at the time and led the deal all the way until she had her baby — she was phenomenal. She was assisted by Bobby Fischbeck who was on every single call, working into the wee hours of the morning and drafting documents and responses.”
The range and intensity of the work was incredibly demanding — on Honeywell, Arnold & Porter and Simmons & Simmons (Honeywell’s non-US counsel), said Dionne Hamilton in her nomination for the deal:
“The complex nature of CCC’s business, combined with its global reach, required a large due diligence team spanning multiple countries. Due diligence was conducted on a variety of complex topics, including sanctions and anti-corruption, export control, data privacy, information technology, intellectual property, real property, employment and labor, tax and trade. The breadth of this due diligence required stellar project management from in-house counsel, who had to manage a broad team of external and internal attorneys and specialists on a very tight timeline.”
Type-A Planning Chick Mentor Mom
Tracy LeRoy, a partner at Yetter Coleman in Houston sees in Vincent a heat-seeking quality — an ability to home in on issues and their potential solution, even outside her corporate responsibilities.
“Gindi is a problem-solver and unafraid to ask questions and find expertise that she needs,” says LeRoy. “When Gindi is asked to weigh in on an issue, she explores the relevant stakeholders’ needs and motivations as well as the underlying legal and business issues to come to a recommendation. She likes to work with people to reach a solution that works for everyone involved and gets the task done efficiently and well.”
Meagan Bachman, a partner at Crowell & Moring, agrees: “Gindi handles the thorniest, highest-value issues that arise in the business units she works with. I’ve personally seen Gindi spearhead creative solutions in the form of change orders and amendments to shipping terms to circumvent supply chain instability — including both from COVID-related disruptions and also insolvency issues — and support Honeywell’s customers.”
Moreover, her personable qualities work in service to her clients’ needs, Bachman notes.
“I would say she’s laser-focused in our interactions, but that would diminish the thoughtfulness with which she listens and asks questions and the care with which she runs our meetings.”
It’s a quality that often turns toward mentoring, says Bachman.
“Gindi is not only an experienced, skilled GC, but she is a wonderful booster of the people she works with. She takes the time to provide both positive and constructive feedback and is never shy about promoting those with whom she works (in-house and external counsel) where she feels it is deserved.”
In 2013 the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession published her book on leadership, Learning to Lead: What Really Works for Women in the Law. The book has been a cornerstone for her wide variety of volunteer and pro bono efforts.
She has been chair of the Texas Young Lawyers Association, chair of the Houston Young Lawyers Foundation, president of the Women’s Energy Network of Houston, vice president of Young Audiences of Houston and on the executive committee of the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
But it is her blog “Gindi’s: The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith and Family” that seems the best articulation of her urge to connect. It is a blog as much about life as career, as much about faith as profession, as much about dreams as professional goals.
“Gindi is a connector,” assesses Tracy LeRoy. “She loves to bring people together, whether its friends that she thinks would get along or attorneys that she sees as future referral sources for each other.”
“For example, Gindi throws a party every year at her home for women lawyers, in which the goal is just to introduce people who might be able to help each other; your invitation is for you and to bring someone else that she doesn’t already know.”
“Gindi cares about helping people grow their careers and thinks proactively about how to help others improve their practice. She sees her role in the context of the larger legal community and proactively works to support and encourage those in her team and in her network,” LeRoy notes.
It’s exactly what a self-diagnosed “Type-A Planning Chick” might expect of herself.