Building a Successful Diversity Initiative for Your Law Department

Darryl W. Gibbs is a Lead Director & Associate General Counsel at AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, a financial services company. In his current position, Darryl heads the Commercial Transactions Group and his duties include managing the drafting, reviewing and negotiating a variety of commercial agreements and corporate transactions, including consultant, technology, intellectual property, software services and license agreements, and product distribution agreements and other strategic business arrangements. Darryl also has responsibility for corporate governance, filings, reporting and compliance programs. He leads the legal department’s internship and mentoring program and activities and he is a major strategic supporter and influencer of AXA’s overall diversity and inclusion efforts both inside and outside the legal department.

Prior to AXA, Darryl worked at the New York law firm Proskauer Rose as an associate in the corporate department. At Proskauer, Darryl represented the corporate interests of several emerging and established companies. He later worked as an Assistant General Counsel in the law department of Safe Horizon, Inc., the nation’s leading victim’s assistance agency.

Darryl is a 2009 alumnus of the Executive Leadership Council – Strengthening the Pipeline Program and a member of Council of Urban Professionals (CUP). He is also a Board Member of several organizations, including The Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John’s University School of Law, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association (New York City), and St. John’s University School of Law Alumni Association. Darryl is the recipient of the New York State Bar Association 2014 Diversity Trailblazer Award, the New York City Bar Association 2015 Diversity & Inclusion Champion Award, and he has been selected as a CUP Catalyst: Change Agent 2015 | Law. Darryl earned his undergraduate degree in marketing at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University and his law degree from St. John’s University School of Law.

Cheryl Givner is senior vice president, assistant general counsel for Mastercard. In this role, she leads and manages the worldwide legal support for marketing, media and sponsorships as well as the development and commercialization of new payment products, financial technology solutions, merchant acceptance solutions and card linked benefits. Prior to assuming this role, Ms. Givner was vice president and managing counsel for global marketing, loyalty solutions, core payment products and merchant acceptance. Earlier, Ms. Givner was vice president and senior counsel providing commercial transactions and marketing legal support to the North America region.

Before joining MasterCard in 2003, Ms. Givner was vice president, general counsel & secretary for Colomer USA, Inc., a mid-size beauty care corporation, where she developed the legal function in a dynamic, start up environment. Prior to Colomer, Ms. Givner served as senior counsel for Revlon Consumer Products Corporation providing legal services for business operations, marketing and intellectual property licensing worldwide. She was also an associate in the former New York office of Hall Dickler Kent Goldstein & Wood, focusing on marketing law, corporate transactions, intellectual property and litigation.

Ms. Givner is a member of the Bar in New York. She is currently on ANA’s Brand Activation Board of Advisors and formerly was co-chair of the Promotion Marketing Association Marketing Law Conference and chair of the Marketing & New Media Committee of the Westchester/Southern Connecticut Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel. She is a regular speaker at industry conferences on social media, advertising and promotion law.

Ms. Givner earned a Juris Doctorate from the Washington College of Law at American University, where she graduated cum laude. She graduated magna cum laude from Lehigh University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Lehigh.

Ms. Skyles is an experienced, trusted legal adviser, who specializes in intellectual property matters and privacy and data security. Ms. Skyles specializes in patent litigation matters, IP portfolio management and development, complex technology transactions, and privacy and data security incident response and compliance. Her litigation experience also includes representing technology companies in e-commerce, class actions, employment, bankruptcy, and corporate derivative suits.

Ms. Skyles is currently Assistant General Counsel for Privacy at Capital One in McLean, VA, and previously served as Assistant General Counsel for IP Litigation. Before that, Ms. Skyles was Of Counsel at Orrick Herrington as a part of its intellectual property and data security and privacy groups in Washington, D.C. Previously, she served as head of litigation and risk management/compliance at SafeNet, Inc., a data security and encryption technology company based in Maryland. Prior to SafeNet, she ran her own law practice, Skyles Law Group in the greater Washington metro area, where she managed litigation and other dispute resolution matters for a variety of technology and media companies.

Before moving to the East Coast, Ms. Skyles worked for over a decade in Silicon Valley. She held the role of Litigation Counsel for Yahoo! Inc., where she oversaw domestic and international litigation and provided legal counsel to business clients in the areas of product planning, product compliance, litigation avoidance, and contractual matters such as technology licensing, indemnities, warranties, joint-ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Skyles also worked as a Litigation Associate for Fenwick & West LLP in Palo Alto, California and was a law clerk for the Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Ms. Skyles graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with a B.A. in History. She obtained a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where she was an editor of the Stanford Law Review.