Early in her career, our founder Paula Pepin, as General Counsel of a high-growth tech company, realized that general counsel were siloed in their role. In 2020, Paula went on to found the boutique consulting firm LexGO and became a professional leadership coach to general counsel. In her coaching role, Paula quickly recognized that her GC clients would unlock further value if they met and learned from each other.

What started as a small group of growth-minded GCs solving problems together at a monthly meetup, grew to a group of close-knit peers meeting for monthly roundtables, workshops, and regular dinners in Vancouver. Enlisting the help of Jenn Smyth-Whelly and Teresa McCabe, the trio saw an opportunity to evolve the growing collective of GCs into a stronger community serving a larger membership.

The GC Collective was born to disrupt the isolation felt by general counsel with no sounding board or peer mentors to provide leadership guidance and strategic know-how. Our goal is to create a tight-knit community of growth-minded GCs, and meet the need they have for access to trusted experts in their field and validation for the burden they carry in a uniquely demanding career, and to offer GC-specific leadership training and resources.