Schulte Roth & Zabel adds two key business leaders

Schulte Roth & Zabel is proud to announce the addition of two key members to the firm's C-suite leadership team with the hires of Jean Lee as Chief People Officer and John K. Johnson as Chief Innovation Officer.

“Our plan has been to build a team of business executives with unique and varied experience, allowing for different vantage points derived from diverse leadership models that will propel our firm into the future,” said David Efron, co-managing partner of Schulte.

“Talent and innovation drive our business so we are very excited to bring on board leaders like Jean and John,” said Marc Elovitz, co-managing partner of Schulte.

Jean will oversee Schulte’s Human Resources, Legal Recruiting and Professional Development departments, and will be responsible for the development and implementation of a talent strategy for the firm’s lawyers and business professionals.

John will be responsible for driving the firm’s innovation priorities and initiatives, which will encompass identifying and evaluating promising new ideas and ways of working together and serving clients. He will collaborate with lawyers and business professionals across the firm to develop, lead and execute on the firm’s innovation strategy.

“I'm honored to join Schulte and further build upon our core values of connectedness, curiosity and courage through people programs that support firm culture and employee engagement, growth and development,” said Jean. “Schulte has a reputation for exceptional client service and I'm excited to support employees’ professional goals and advance the firm's business objectives.”

“I was attracted by Schulte’s great people and foresight in vision,” said John. “In this new role, I look forward to drawing upon my unique background to drive collaboration and problem solving to serve the firm’s long-term success. As I do, I’ll partner with stakeholders across the firm to prioritize the right issues and co-create and execute informed strategies to make the most of new opportunities and stay ahead of the curve through focused attention to our industry’s evolution.”

Jean spent more than 25 years working across a multitude of industries to ensure that people strategies reflect and enable key business initiatives.

Prior to joining Schulte, Jean was the Global Chief People Officer and held senior human resources positions within the agency network Interpublic Group, helping Weber Shandwick to be named to Ad Age's “Best Places to Work.”

She also held talent management roles at Avon Products and The Walt Disney Company, in addition to providing human capital and change management solutions to Aon Consulting's clients for a decade. Her projects have included the post-merger integration following Citigroup’s acquisition of Banamex in 2001, the building of a new HR capability at Goldman Sachs following its IPO in 1999, the cultural integration of GHI and HIP after coming together as EmblemHealth in 2006, and other business initiatives in the human capital space.

Jean earned an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Communications Studies from University of California, Los Angeles. 

John has more than 15 years of legal industry experience from the vantage points of external counsel, member of a corporate compliance monitorship team, senior in-house leader and corporate affairs executive. A key area of focus for John has been leveraging data and programmatic thinking to drive results.

Most recently, he served as the Global Head of Compliance at Spotify. Prior to that he worked as Global Director of Compliance at AB InBev, SA, where he played a key role in launching its award-winning BrewRight platform and was based in India as the Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs for AB InBev’s South Asia subsidiary.

He is also a longstanding champion of DEI initiatives, previously serving as the founding board chair of Pipeline to Practice and on the board of the George Crawford Black Bar Association. He is also a member of the board of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.

John graduated from Columbia Law School, and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale College.