Since her early days of practicing litigation and then transactional work at Vinson & Elkins, Chasity Henry has pondered the idea of being in the corporate C-suite as a general counsel.
Today, Henry started her first day on the job as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Dallas-based CECO Environmental.
A 2006 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Henry has been the assistant general counsel at Kimberly-Clark Corporation for the past 2 ½ years, where she led the global company’s strategic transactions, including mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures.
At age 39, Henry is widely recognized as one of the leading voices on diversity in the legal profession. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook award her the 2019 DFW Corporate Counsel of the Year for Diversity Achievement.
“While the decision to leave Kimberly-Clark was difficult and not taken lightly, the opportunity to join CECO Environmental, a global, growth-oriented company uniquely positioned to help address some of the world’s most vital environmental needs, is an opportunity that I felt would fit well with my background, skillset and interests,” Henry told The Texas Lawbook.
As general counsel, Henry oversees all legal functions at CECO Environmental, including corporate governance, enterprise risk management and compliance and strategic transactions.
“In addition to my interest in the company, I found the role itself to be of great interest. I have been intentional about acquiring the broad skillset needed for the general counsel role, including experience with M&A, corporate governance, compliance, contracts, and employment law,” she said.
During Henry’s time at Kimberly-Clark, she led the company’s sale of its industrial welding and personal protective equipment businesses to Vancouver-based SureWerx in December 2018. Last year, she led Kimberly-Clark’s strategic investment in Thinx as part of a Thinx’s Series A fundraise. Thinx offers environmentally sustainable solutions to menstruation and bladder leaks while confronting the taboos that surround them.
Kimberly-Clark General Counsel Jeff Melucci told The Texas Lawbook that Henry’s departure is “a loss” for his legal department but that he is “very happy for Chasity” and that it was “only a matter of time before great things were going to take shape for her.”
“In terms of accomplishments and strengths, Chasity helped spearhead the most important and strategic transactions for Kimberly-Clark over the last 2 ½ years,” Melucci said. “Her greatest contribution may have been felt through her principled, focused leadership that helped drive the legal agenda in K-C.”
Melucci also praised Henry as his “main thought partner in driving diversity efforts in the function [as diversity leader], which has resulted in an organization comprised of over 60% women and more than 33% of our director and above executives being comprised of people of color.”
Henry has been a leading voice for diversity and inclusion in the legal profession in North Texas.
In 2015, she founded The NEW Roundtable, a nonprofit organization comprised of in-house and outside counsel. The mission of the NEW Roundtable (NEW stands for Network of Empowered Women) is to enhance and promote the advancement of African-American women attorneys within the legal profession. The organization has witnessed extraordinary success.
But Henry didn’t stop there. In the summer of 2018, she helped launch DAPP Direct. DAPP stands for Diverse Attorney Pipeline Program, which can be credited with significant achievements during the past two years.
“Diversity numbers have declined during the past decade because we continue to do the same things that haven’t worked and we keep doubling down on those same tactics,” she told The Texas Lawbook in an interview earlier this year. “New ideas need to be tried. Law firms need to expand the number of law schools from which they recruit, and they need to recruit a little deeper into the class, instead of just stopping at the top 10%.”
“I prefer the carrot approach to dealing with law firms and increasing diversity, but sometimes we need to use the stick that we have, too,” she said. “More legal departments need to hold their outside law firms accountable.”
Henry was born and raised in Fort Worth. Her mother was a federal employee for several years and was able to stay home with her three children when they were growing up.
Henry’s father worked on an assembly line for several years, earning just enough money for the family to survive. But her dad decided to change careers and become an air traffic controller – a decision that had a lasting impact on the lives of their family.
“In order to get the job, he was required to attend and graduate from a three-month academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” Henry said. “The failure rate was in the 60th percentile. Despite the challenges and risks, my dad quit his job and moved to Oklahoma to attend the academy.”
Henry said her father came home on weekends, but he studied “almost around the clock.” His hard work paid off.
“He graduated from the academy at the top of his class and was hired as an air traffic controller, greatly increasing our family’s opportunities,” she said. “Seeing him work hard to accomplish such a challenging goal and my mother’s partnership with him in that endeavor taught me valuable lessons that have stayed with me. When opportunities present themselves, take advantage and then put in the work to accomplish your goals.”
When Henry was 10, her father showed her a “map of the sky where airplanes could fly.”
“On my first trip to Europe to study abroad in London, my dad called the pilot, who then announced over the speaker system that my dad had found them a shortcut for the flight,” she said.
Henry’s parents emphasized the importance of education to their three children. Her sister is a surgeon and her brother is an NYU-educated actor.
Vinson & Elkins hired Henry right out of law school. She initially worked in the firm’s litigation practice, but switched to corporate transactional work.
“Early in my career, I became increasingly interested in learning about our clients’ businesses, not only for purposes of working up a case but I found business operations generally very fascinating,” she said. “I had never worked for a corporation prior to this, and I began to crave that exposure. The more I learned about our clients’ business drivers, operations and results, the more I began to wonder if going in-house was something I would want to do at some point in my career.”
“From a substantive perspective, I enjoyed taking a deep-dive into issues that were important to the business,” she said. “The more I talked to business people and got to know the drivers of a particular client’s business, the more meaningful my work became. This confirmed my desire to go in-house, preferably in an environment where I would have a high volume of interaction with the business.”
In 2010, Henry joined the healthcare services company called Novation (now Vizient) as senior counsel. During her four years at Novation, she negotiated hundreds of commercial transactions annually and worked with scores of people in the business.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group hired Henry as corporate counsel in 2015.
Three years later, she joined Kimberly-Clark.
Henry said that she grew a lot as a lawyer and leader working for Melucci.
“[Jeff] is a phenomenal leader and a great mentor and role model,” she said. “Being a part of such a highly functioning legal department and observing the way Jeff led the department and developed his team will certainly shape how I approach the general counsel role.”
Henry said she learned about the general counsel opening at CECO Environmental through Amber Shockey at the legal recruiting firm Major Lindsey & Africa.
“Amber and I have known each other for a couple of years,” she said. “I let her know quite some time ago that I would be open to exploring the right GC opportunity and she approached me with this one because she thought it may be a mutual fit.”
Henry said that CECO Environmental under the leadership of CEO Dennis Sadlowski meets her desire to be in a “mission-driven” atmosphere.
Amy Stewart of the Stewart Law Group told The Texas Lawbook in January that Henry is “incredibly courageous” to be so vocal about diversity.
“There are a lot of people who talk about diversity, but Chasity is doing more than lip service,” Stewart says. “She puts her business reputation on the line to speak out. At every level, Chasity is trying to make change.” “Chasity is making a big difference in the legal profession.”