After nearly three decades at PepsiCo, Leanne Oliver is moving to private practice at Phillips Murrah as a director in its Dallas office. Oliver made the decision to retire from PepsiCo at the end of 2024 and her retirement became effective last weekend.
Dawn Rahme, Phillips Murrah’s president and managing partner, said the firm “jumped at the opportunity to add a senior in-house leader like Leanne.” The firm has worked with Oliver as outside counsel to PepsiCo for close to 15 years.
Oliver achieved many successes during her tenure at PepsiCo and was promoted six times. She successfully defended the multinational food and beverage company against major class-action lawsuits, led strategic corporate acquisitions, and developed innovative employment policies and management training programs.
Ex-PepsiCo General Counsel Larry Thompson, who served as deputy attorney general of the United States under President George W. Bush, told The Texas Lawbook in a profile of Oliver that, “No one really knows PepsiCo as well as Leanne. She has brought enormous value to the company and to the entire legal profession.”
Oliver was recognized by the DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. Her major successes and achievements at PepsiCo include:
- writing and implementing Frito-Lay’s first medical leave policy;
- creating a groundbreaking training video for front-line management regarding sexual harassment in the workplace;
- developing the legal strategy and putting together the outside counsel team that defeated a nationwide class action lawsuit in which the plaintiffs sought hundreds of millions of dollars in damages;
- leading a successful effort with PepsiCo’s governmental affairs team to convince the governor of Rhode Island in 2009 to veto legislation that would have outlawed the compensation structure for company’s front-line sales employees; and
- successfully guiding the company through an intense first audit of its Frito-Lay headquarters by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.
Winning the class action case, she told The Lawbook, stands out the most.
“I developed a ‘dream team’ of outside counsel, and over many, many hours we thought through every aspect of that case in excruciating detail, and then we went for it,” she said. “I literally screamed when I got the good news. The day we got the judge’s decision was one of the best days of my career.”
Oliver also played a lead role in PepsiCo’s acquisition of BFY Brands, maker of PopCorners, which closed in February 2020, just before Covid-19 shut everything down. It was the first deal Oliver worked on from beginning to end.
Megan Hurley, who is based in New York, is PepsiCo North America’s general counsel. Oliver’s Plano-based PepsiCo deputy Adrienne Mosley was promoted to senior vice president of legal on March 1. Mosley is also a past honoree of the ACC-DFW & Texas Lawbook DFW Corporate Counsel Awards.
AREAS OF FOCUS
Oliver will primarily focus on commercial litigation.
EDUCATION
Undergraduate: Gonzaga University (B.S., Biology, 1990)
Law School: University of Houston Law Center (J.D., 1994)
To read Mark Curriden’s full profile on Oliver for her Lifetime Achievement Award recognition, click here.
