‘It was like Lord of the Flies’

For Yuki Whitmire, it was the perfect storm, though at times it may have felt like the Bermuda Triangle.

Last March, the securities and corporate transactional lawyer accepted a new job as Vistra Energy’s associate general counsel and corporate secretary with a start date in early April.

In those few weeks in between, the world seemed to turn upside down.

The Covid-19 pandemic struck, of course, and Vistra sent everyone home to work remotely. At the same time, Whitmire and her family were moving into a new house. School for her three children, including twins, also went remote with the kids learning at home. And they had no childcare because of the coronavirus.

“It was crazy to think about all that was going on and how we got through it,” Whitmire told The Texas Lawbook. “It was like Lord of the Flies and our kids were the kids on the island.

“It was quite possibly the most challenging experience of my life,” she said.

By all accounts, Whitmire employing a passion for her work and a great sense of humor overcame every gauntlet and obstacle in 2020.

“It is undeniable that past year brought unprecedented challenges to all, changing how companies do business and how people live their lives,” said Ogletree Deakins lawyer Janet Smith. “To say it was the most challenging experience of Yuki’s life would be an understatement.”

As corporate secretary, she led the transition to all-remote board meetings, kept board members updated on governance issues and shareholder communications.

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Immediately upon joining, Whitmire provided analysis to Vistra’s business development and strategy teams on potential acquisitions and guidance on deal structure and she played a critical role in the company’s purchase of the customer base of retail energy provider Infinite Energy and Veteran Energy in November.

Whitmire has done all of this despite not having spent a day in the Vistra offices in Irving.

“What Yuki and her legal team achieved this year is especially extraordinary given all the challenging circumstances in 2020,” said Smith, who is on the board of directors of the Dallas Asian American Bar Association. “The Senior Corporate Counsel Award would be a very special way of acknowledging Yuki and the legal department at Vistra for their tremendous efforts and success this year in their monumental shift to clean energy.”

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook agree.

By a unanimous vote of a panel of independent judges, Yuki Whitmire is the sole finalist and thus the recipient of the 2020 DFW Senior Counsel of the Year Award for a midsized legal department. The winners will be celebrated at the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards ceremony June 3 at the George Bush Institute.

“While Yuki is a confident lawyer with excellent technical skills, I believe her most impressive trait is her ability to maintain calm under pressure,” said Bill Howell, a partner at Sidley Austin in Dallas. “Even when significant, often unrealistic, time expectations are placed on the legal team, she maintains a sense of calm that is reassuring to everyone working with her.

“Yuki approaches each legal issue in the same methodical way, regardless of how time-sensitive it is and how difficult the question may seem,” Howell said. “It is the combination of her calm demeanor and thoughtful approach to problems that truly make her an excellent lawyer.”

In addition to Covid-19-related matters, Vistra charged Whitmire with supporting the company’s investor relations team in preparing to role out the environmental, social and governance initiative.

“I have the privilege of joining Vistra during a key period of transformation for the company,” Whitmire said. “We recently announced an acceleration of our plan to transition to clean power generation and to reduce our carbon footprint, as well our long-term capital allocation plan. The development and announcement of our strategy has been a companywide effort, and our group has been actively supporting our business partners in various areas.”

“It’s been an active, challenging and exciting 13 months at the company,” Whitmire said.

Vistra Energy General Counsel Stephanie Zapata Moore said Whitmire has been extraordinarily successful in her first year at the power generation giant.

“Yuki has come up to speed on our industry in record time and always offers constructive and proactive feedback to the business,” Moore said. “She wants to constantly improve and is always looking for ways to better support the business and be responsive to their needs.  She is a fantastic writer with outstanding business acumen. She also has a great way with our board of directors and has developed a strong reputation as a confident leader in a short amount of time.

“It is truly remarkable to me that Yuki has not worked a day at our physical office,” Moore said. “The relationships that she has built remotely and the confidence that the clients have in her makes it seem as though she was with us for years prior to the pandemic.”

Whitmire was born in Long Beach, California, but the family moved every few years because her father was a Naval officer who was a veteran of both the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. Her mother stayed at home with the children while her husband was deployed. When the kids graduated from high school, when she went back to college and earned a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University.

The family spent Whitmire’s junior high and high school years living near Waco. Her dad retired from the military, became an insurance agent for several years and is now retired and operates a small photography business.

Whitmire received her bachelor’s in business administration from St. Edward’s University in Austin in 2001 and then went to law school at UCLA.

“My mother obtained her master’s degree on the same day I graduated from law school,” she said. “Fun story. My mother was in L.A. for my law school graduation and had to miss her graduation for her master’s degree that was being held on the same day. We surprised my mom, secretly obtaining her cap and gown and diploma from Baylor, and we held a mini graduation with the UCLA Law School dean who presented her diploma following the law school graduation proceedings.”

Whitmire’s mom obtained her doctorate degree and now teaches Japanese language at Baylor University.

There were no lawyers in her family. In fact, Whitmire was the first in her family to graduate from college.

Growing up, Whitmire dreamed of being a doctor.

“In high school, a teacher predicted that I would become a lawyer when I grew up,” she said. “Of course, at the time, I thought she was way off because I was still committed to my dream of becoming a doctor, but it was the first time I gave it any thought.

“I realized later that I don’t like the sight of blood, so medical school was out.”

After law school, several law firms interviewed Whitmire, but she chose Haynes and Boone because of the firm’s culture.

“I was also impressed with the partner-associate relationships, noticing partners who were actively involved and supportive of associate development,” she said. “What resonated most with me was that corporate transactions were a collaborative effort, and as the corporate transactions attorney you were quarterbacking the deal with the various functional groups.”

Whitmire spent six years at Haynes and Boone and then three years at Akin Gump.

In 2016, Whitmire accepted an offer from Dean Foods to go in-house.

“I realized that what I truly enjoyed most were the long-term clients I worked with and the relationships and knowledge of their business that I had developed over the years,” she said. “I found the intersection of legal with the business side much more interesting and satisfying, and I thought a career in-house would provide that opportunity.”

After two-and-a-half years at Dean Foods and then 18 months as associate general counsel at Arcosa, Whitmire was contacted by a legal recruiter about an open position at Vistra Energy.

Vistra had just completed a couple of large acquisitions, and it was shifting toward a renewables strategy. Whitmire met with corporate executives and the legal team. She was impressed with the team-oriented culture.

Vistra offered Whitmire the job in March. She accepted and then started her new job in April. The company had already adapted protocols for remote working.  

Whitmire’s priority during the early stages of the pandemic involved planning, coordinating and implementing board meetings in a virtual environment.

“Virtually transitioning to a new company has had its unique challenges,” she said. “Integrating with a range of key business clients has required intentional effort on my part to engage in a virtual environment.”

The transition was further complicated because the corporate secretary’s office had been recently reorganized, which meant she had to develop new relationships with strategic business partners to make sure that their processes and priorities were aligned.

“Yuki is particularly well-suited for the in-house environment because she is collaborative by nature,” Howell said. “She routinely seeks the input and buy-in of her business teams before reaching a conclusion to a legal issue or implementing a particular strategy. Her desire to collaborate with various stakeholders at the company has also resulted in her gaining a deeper understanding of the business issues involved.

“Her ability to understand the business realities of a strategy help her find solutions that work for all constituencies,” he said.

Moore said Whitmire’s achievements since starting last April and working 100% remotely have been remarkable.

“Yuki has closed a retail transaction, completed a proxy statement and annual meeting, and hosted multiple board meetings remotely – our board met weekly at the start of the pandemic and, although that has moved to monthly, we have held many more meetings that we ordinarily would,” Moore said. 

“She has revamped our process for materials preparation and review for board meetings and has received rave reviews for bringing more organization and ease to the constant calendar of board materials,” Moore said. “But I think her biggest success is doing all of this and building confidence with clients in a remote work environment, as well as developing the lawyers who work for her, including one person who we hired last fall.”

Whitmire, who has started enjoying bourbon tastings since remote working was implemented, said her best day on the job at Vistra came in September at the company’s “Investor Event” to rollout the transition to clean power generation.

“I am so proud of our CEO and senior management and how they handled the issues around the pandemic and then the winter storm in February,” she said. “Despite all the issues that have surfaced, I am so excited to be part of a company that continues to look and move forward.”