Baker Botts Partner Sian Williams is joined by special guest, Tara Rajah. Together they discuss moving from big law to in-house, the importance of sponsors and mentors, major accomplishments beyond the work day, and the importance of continued learning in the TMT industry.

Tara is General Counsel Corporate Risk and Head of Business Integrity at WPP where she advises on legal and regulatory risks, ensures that WPP’s governance promotes an ethically robust work environment and works with WPP’s executive and senior management to pre-empt risk and address risk impact across all of WPP’s companies and its 110 markets. Tara is also a member of WPP’s Risk Committee, supporting the plc Board and Audit Committee to set and steer risk appetite, monitoring and mitigation of WPP’s principal risks.

Prior to joining WPP, Tara was Counsel at Allen & Overy where she trained and worked in the London, New York and Bangkok offices as well as undertaking a corporate client secondment. Whilst at A&O, Tara advised on a range of corporate and commercial matters including governance, cross-border acquisitions and disposals, strategic alliances, restructurings and listing advisory work. She was also a member of the i2 Panel (A&O’s “ideas and investment” group) encouraging and developing new digital and technology-related opportunities and a Faculty member of A&O’s “Women Making Their Mark” programme.

Tara has a MSc in Finance and Financial Law from the University of London and a Law degree from Newnham College, Cambridge University.

Baker Botts Partner Natalie Gonzales is joined by special guest, Jennifer Yokoyama - Microsoft. In July 2021, Jennifer was promoted to Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Cloud + AI at Microsoft. Prior to her promotion, Jennifer served as the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, IP Group & Chief IP Counsel at Microsoft. Jennifer is passionate about intellectual property and closing the data divide so everyone can benefit from collaborating around data and powering a new generation of transformative technology for companies and organizations worldwide. Through her various roles, she is on a mission to protect and cultivate innovation at Microsoft. Jennifer is also a Member of the Board of Directors for ChIPs, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing women in tech, law and policy. Jennifer will speak to her passion for innovation, managing a diverse legal team, and the importance of mentoring the next generation of women leaders.  

Baker Botts Partner Stuart Blythe is joined by special guest, Jayne Stowell. Jayne is the Strategic Negotiator of Global Infrastructure at Google, overseeing the development and construction of undersea cable projects. Jayne will talk to her distinguished career, which has been almost exclusively in the telecom and digital communications sector and in a range of advisory and executive roles, having worked for major accounting and  banking firms, held senior executive and Board positions in telecommunications companies, and having led her own successful consulting firm. Within the subsea sector, Jayne’s consistently innovative approach has proven to be transformative, from successfully building her first submarine cable in just 18 months through deploying systems in almost every region in the world. Jayne joined Google in 2007 as a key component to Google’s subsea cable endeavor, and continues to lead the team throughout its technology advances. Google itself continues to be a leader in the space, with its recently deployed Dunant cable system between the U.S. and Europe delivering record breaking capacity of 250 terabits per second and Grace Hopper cable with 16 fibre pairs and at least 340 Tbps of capacity which is currently being constructed between the US, UK and Spain.

In this month’s TMT Spotlight - Leading Women Podcast, Baker Botts Partners Mollie Duckworth* and John Kaercher*, are joined by special guest, Amy Porter. Amy is Founder and Executive Chairman of AffiniPay and leads the direction and growth of the company. Her knowledge and experience in the payment industry has helped her build a dynamic, talented and client-focused team. Over the past decade, AffiniPay has become the payment processing partner for thousands of associations. In addition, AffiniPay provides member benefit programs for key partners in the legal, accounting and medical industries. AffiniPay's LawPay brand has become the gold standard for correctly handling credit card transactions in a law firm.

*Mollie Duckworth and John Kaercher are no longer affiliated with Baker Botts L.L.P.