For a quarter of a century, Leanne Oliver has been a corporate in-house lawyer for PepsiCo and Frito-Lay. She has been a groundbreaker in developing family leave policies and internal training efforts to eliminate sexual harassment. She’s also a highly successful labor and employment lawyer.
Oliver is now the general counsel of PepsiCo Foods North America, a multibillion-dollar subsidiary of the global beverage and snack food giant that includes brands like Frito-Lay, Ruffles, Doritos, Tostitos and Cheetos.
Citing Oliver’s extraordinary professional successes and the two-decades of service and leadership she has provided to the North Texas legal community, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have chosen Oliver to receive the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Lifetime Achievement Award.
The fact that multiple law firms – Baker Botts, Dykema and Phillips Murrah – and even a few corporate in-house legal departments and legal industry recruiters supported Oliver’s nomination make the University of Houston Law Center graduate the perfect selection.
Previous DFW Lifetime Achievement Award recipients include T-Mobile Chief Counsel Chris Luna, Pimco board member and former American Airlines General Counsel Gary Kennedy, Pioneer Natural Resources Executive Vice President Mark Berg and Sidley Austin senior counsel and former EDS Chief Legal Officer Gil Friedlander.
ACC DFW president and Toyota North American managing counsel Derek Lipscombe said Oliver embodies the very ideals that the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook seek in a Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
The Texas Lawbook plans to publish an in-depth profile of Oliver in March.
In fact, The Texas Lawbook plans to profile over the next three months the lives and careers of all 25 finalists for the 2020 DFW Outstanding Corporate Counsel Awards.
The DFW Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook are honoring the finalists and announcing the winners at the annual awards event June 3 at the George W. Bush Institute.