Rhonda Powell
General Counsel
BuzzFeed
As Senior Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs and Chief Legal Officer for Complex Networks, Rhonda Powell leads a team of professional and administrative staff that supports all areas of the company’s rapidly growing digital media business. In her role, Rhonda provides strategic and legal guidance to the organization on a range of topics, including content creation, intellectual property protection, content distribution, advertising and social media. She also oversees compliance and litigation matters for the company, including development of applicable internal policies and processes, and acts as the company’s Corporate Secretary.
Ms. Powell joined Complex in January 2017 after twelve (12) years in various roles at Scripps Networks. At Scripps Networks, Ms. Powell spent three years as Vice President, Business & Legal Affairs, managing the team providing negotiation and documentation support to the Digital Content Creation and Digital Advertising Sales teams across all Scripps Networks’ digital properties, including network-branded websites and Ulive.com.
Ms. Powell utilized her analytical skills and judgment to assist clients in the development and implementation of their strategic and tactical plans and to provide transactional support. Rhonda assumed this role after five years leading the Business Affairs team serving Food Network, one of Scripps most popular and widely-distributed programming networks as well as Scripps’ newest network, Cooking Channel.
Ms. Powell is graduate of Harvard University (magna cum laude w/ summa honors in major) and The University of Michigan School of Law, where she was named a Clarence Darrow Merit Scholar. A member of both WICT and NAMIC, Ms. Powell has taken an active role in efforts to celebrate and enhance diversity in the corporate workplace and workforce.
Ms. Powell serves on the Boards of Directors of PowerMyLearning, which has as its core mission the use of technology and creation of partnerships among parents, teachers and children to enhance and enrich the learning experience and the Food Education Fund, which supports Food and Finance High School, the only New York City public school providing students with a comprehensive culinary education.
She is a mentor to several young women and men throughout the New York metropolitan area, including high school, college and law school students, as well as junior lawyers.
Leah C. Montesano
Vice President, Litigation
Discovery, Inc.
Leah C. Montesano is the Vice President at Discovery, Inc.
Lauren Fisher
Chief Legal Officer
Vox Media, Inc.
Vox Media is a top-tier modern media company that believes in the power of going deeper to connect with global, passionate, curious audiences. As part of Vox Media’s executive team, Lauren is involved in setting company strategy and high-level decision making.
Vox Media’s legal issues are widely varied, from intellectual property to personnel issues, info security and data privacy to corporate governance, and from advertising law to corporate compliance. Lauren has been with Vox Media since 2008, when the company was known as SportsBlogs, Inc. and only published the SB Nation sports blogs brand.
Prior to joining Vox Media, Lauren worked at AOL and The Vanguard Group. Lauren is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and of the University of Pennsylvania.
Randi W. Singer
Partner
Weil, Goshal & Manges LLP
Randi Singer is a litigation partner in Weil’s New York office, a member of the Firm’s Intellectual Property & Media practice and Co-Head of its Cybersecurity, Data Privacy & Information Management group. She focuses primarily on copyright, Lanham Act false advertising and trademark litigation, as well as privacy and cybersecurity, in addition to complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy proceedings.
Ms. Singer has been repeatedly recognized as a leading intellectual property and media & entertainment lawyer by legal industry publications, including The Legal 500 US, Chambers USA, World Trademark Review, Benchmark Litigation, Managing IP Magazine’s IP Stars, Super Lawyers, and Law360. She has successfully represented and counseled clients on a wide variety of copyright and trademark matters encompassing classic ownership and fair use issues for comic books, academic works, music and photographs. A recognized expert on secondary liability infringement issues, major internet platform clients regularly call on Ms. Singer for help navigating an array of unprecedented concerns and solving a wide variety of disputes. Her advertising, trademark, and state unfair trade practices cases have spanned a broad spectrum of consumer products and services, from over-the-counter drugs, razors, toothpaste, paint, food and cosmetics, to financial services, cell phone cases, luxury goods and consumer electronics.
Ms. Singer has earned the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) credentials and regularly advises clients in connection with privacy, cybersecurity, and social media issues in a wide variety of matters, including more than one hundred transactions ranging from high-profile deals such as Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp, Inc. to large public company mergers and small talent acquisitions. In 2015, The National Law Journal recognized Ms. Singer as one of its inaugural “Trailblazers” nationwide for her cutting-edge work in the cybersecurity and data privacy area.