HONOREE

Dawn Haghighi

General Counsel
Murcor Real Estate Services
Family of Companies
Case Western Reserve University School of Law

Dawn Haghighi has masterfully and consistently represented the international city of Los Angeles around the globe over the course of her 20+ year career in both professional and community service capacities. She is a successful general counsel with responsibility at public, multi-national, and private corporations. She is an independent board director and a recognized thought leader in cybersecurity, board governance, risk management, and diversity, equity and inclusion. She holds global leadership roles in legal bar, trade, and professional associations and is a community leader and volunteer, which have earned her many awards. Currently, Haghighi is the general counsel, privacy, and compliance officer for the Murcor Real Estate family of companies (minority-owned). In the area of board governance and diversity, equity, and inclusion, Haghighi has been a trailblazer in opening the way for women and underrepresented candidates to serve on corporate boards.
Throughout Haghighi’s numerous service and leadership roles, she is universally respected and known for enthusiastic, active, well-prepared, effective leadership and dedication to helping others and to bring about a more diverse and inclusive world. She has been in-house at both public and private companies for over 15 years and has served in senior executive roles. She currently leads a small law department (which is very diverse) while working as the general counsel for affiliated companies PCV Murcor Real Estate Service (Los Angeles), Hightide Settlement Services (Anaheim) and Vendor Resource Mortgage Services (Dallas). Her in-house career has also encompassed senior management positions with responsibility for legal matters at several multi-national corporations, including assistant general counsel and privacy officer for a cruise line, a bank, an insurance company and a leading retail brand. Throughout her entire life, Haghighi has contributed a significant amount of her time and her talents to many ACC, professional and volunteer organizations.
Her commitment and service to the community has been essential to the success of both ACC programs and programs in the wider community which support diversity and inclusion, pro bono and volunteer services. Through her ACC leadership roles, she has raised the visibility of ACC and, more importantly, she has made a difference in promoting diversity and inclusion and volunteerism around the globe.

FINALISTS

Bernadette Chala

Chief Legal Officer
Arbonne International, LLC
UCLA School of Law

Bernadette Chala is an exemplary attorney who demonstrates business acumen, professionalism, and leadership in her work. She is a “working leader” who is not afraid to work side by side with her team and actively demonstrates integrity and ethics. Chala not only talks about executing goals with excellence, she also demonstrates executional excellence in her actions. She is a skilled litigator and legal statesperson committed to the charitable causes she supports – including her work for the Arbonne Flourish Foundation – and she is proud that she took the lead in converting her company to a public benefit company in 2019, which has since become independently certified by B Labs in 2020. She also demonstrated her leadership skills while managing evolving COVID-19 rules and regulations both nationally and internationally and supporting business needs both for business continuity, compliance, and for employee support. Previously, she oversaw, negotiated and successfully managed the acquisition of Arbonne International in 2018 by Groupe Rocher.

Santiago Fernandez

Executive Vice President & General Counsel
Los Angeles Dodgers
UC Hastings College of Law

Santiago Fernandez joined the Los Angeles Dodgers as general counsel on June 1, 1984 and has been promoted many times over the years, leading to his current post as executive vice president and general counsel. During his tenure with the Dodgers, Fernandez has been responsible for overseeing all the team’s legal affairs. His duties have included negotiating and drafting contracts with the team’s broadcasting partners, concessionaires, sponsors, players, and organized labor, licensing the team’s marks and other intellectual property, leasing the stadium for concerts and films, and supervising all litigation. He was actively involved in each of the three sales of the team that have taken place during the past 30 years.
Fernandez has worked onmatters ranging from the establishment of the Dodgers’ training facility in the Dominican Republic in 1986 to the sale of Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, and the construction of and move to Camelback Ranch, the Dodgers’ spring training facility in Glendale, Arizona.

Craig Levine

Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary
WASH Multifamily Laundry Systems LLC
USC Law School

Craig Levine serves as WASH’s executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. In 2013, Levine successfully made the transition from outside counsel with Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, LLP, to take the reins as WASH’s in-house general counsel and is now an integral part of the company’s senior management team. This move gave him a unique perspective on the company, its industry, and the overall marketplace and allowed him to leverage his vast experience serving clients in private practice to a new corporate environment. Levine joined WASH at a time of tremendous growth and during the company’s global expansion which led to a successful recapitalization by EQT Partners in May 2015. Over the past five years, WASH has doubled in size through a series of successful mergers, acquisitions and integrations. Levine’s efforts both as general counsel and in his time with Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, LLP have been vital to the organization’s corporate expansion efforts.

Marissa Song

General Counsel & Corporate Secretary
GRAIL, Inc.
University of Southern California

Marissa Lee Song is the general counsel and corporate secretary at GRAIL, Inc., a health care company devoted to early detection of cancer to enable early treatment. At GRAIL, Song oversees global legal functions, including oversight of intellectual property, commercial affairs and compliance functions. In her day-today role, Song partners closely with her business counterparts and has built an exceptional, world-class legal team, which provides exceptional legal service to internal stakeholders. Her recent accomplishments include filing GRAIL’s highly anticipated Form S-1 Registration Statement in July 2020 in a record 28 days. While working on the anticipated IPO, Song helped negotiate the terms of the blockbuster $8 billion acquisition of GRAIL by Illumina, Inc., which remains pending today. Currently, she is fiercely advocating for GRAIL’s right to consummate the acquisition, which is being challenged by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and reviewed by the European Commission, while overseeing the commercial launch of GRAIL’s inaugural multi-cancer early detection test product.