GC Appointments
Tom Gerke joined H&R Block as general counsel and senior vice president. He has a wealth of experience in the telecommunications industry—he was formerly CEO of landline telephone company Embarq (a spin-off of Sprint). Before his appointment at H&R Block, he was most recently general counsel at trucking company YRC Worldwide.
Though rumors of this appointment had long been swirling around, News Corp. recently officially announced that Williams & Connolly partner Gerson Zweifach will be taking over as the organization’s general counsel and senior vice president, effective Feb. 1. His first order of business will be to deal with the media company’s ongoing phone-hacking scandal.
The new owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars named Sashi Brown general counsel, promoting him from his previous role as senior vice president, digital media, and assistant general counsel. Brown is stepping into the GC role following the recent departure of Paul Vance, who had been GC of the Jaguars since the team’s inception.
The software development company triCerat, Inc. hired Vasilios Peros as president and general counsel. Peros is also Vice President and General Counsel of Playscreen and Founder of the Law Office of Vasilios Peros. He was previously a partner at Thomas & Libowitz, and adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University.
Michael Rosner, formerly senior counsel at Loeb & Loeb, joined Relativity Media as general counsel. Rosner is replacing Gregory Shamo, who was promoted from general counsel to co-chief operating officer, along with Happy Walters.
Scott Schwartz will be leaving the intellectual property group at Cozen O’Conner to join his long-time client Dansko LLC as the company’s first general counsel. Before he joined Cozen O’Conner, Schwartz served as in-house counsel for Intel Corporation.
Other In-House Moves
Former U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey is joining HSBC Holdings as chief legal officer. Levey was undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence for the U.S. government during both the Bush and Obama administrations until resigning from his position a year ago.
Eric Grossman was named Morgan Stanley’s chief legal officer, after current CLO Frank Barren announced his plans to retire this year. Before his appointment, Grossman served as Morgan Stanley’s global head of legal.
