Leadership

Our Board of Directors

 

Rachel Boyce

Rachel Boyce is an associate in the San Francisco office of Cooley LLP where she is a member of the firm's Business Group. She focuses her practice on all stages of real estate transactions including financing, acquisitions, joint ventures, purchases and sales, corporate reorganizations, and leasing. She also works on project finance, debt finance and general corporate matters.

Rachel received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees, with honors, from the University of the West Indies, her law degree, with honors, from the University of London, and her LLM from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Gabriel Yomi Dabiri

Gabriel Yomi Dabiri is the Managing Partner of Polsinelli's New York office and the Team Leader of Polsinelli’s Private Debt and Private Equity Finance practices. Gabriel is also a dual-qualified practitioner, admitted to practice law as an attorney in New York and as a solicitor in England and Wales. Prior to practicing in the United States, Gabriel practiced law in the United Kingdom and in Asia.

Gabriel has been recognized as an Empire State Counsel® Honoree by the New York State Bar Association, as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers magazine in each year from 2015 to 2019 for his work in Banking, Securities and Corporate Finance, and by The National Black Lawyers – Top 100 for “exemplifying superior qualifications of leadership, reputation, influence and performance in his areas of legal practice.”

Conway Ekpo

Conway Ekpo is a Director and Associate General Counsel of Product at Brex and previously served as Brex's Chief Privacy Officer. In his current role, Conway is responsible for managing a legal team that advises the business on all issues that impact Brex’s financial and technology products, which range from software-as-a-service to corporate credit cards to venture debt financing. In addition, he is also an adjunct law professor at Rutgers School of Law and a ​2023 Black Venture Institute (BVI) Fellow through the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. Conway is a venture capital investor and a member of the BLCK VC Hub community.

Prior to joining the fintech industry, Conway was a Wall Street lawyer. He began his legal career as a BigLaw associate in New York City before transitioning in-house, first as regulatory counsel to Bank of America Merrill Lynch and then as an Executive Director in the legal department at Morgan Stanley.

Jennifer Kent

Jennifer is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins LLP. Jennifer represents private equity sponsors and private and public company borrowers in secured lending and other financing transactions, both domestic and cross-border.

Jennifer earned her BS in financial economics from the Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County and her JD magma cum laude from Boston College (BC) Law School, where she was an editor of the BC Law Review.

Shanna Miles

Shanna Miles is a Counsel in the New York office of Akin LLP. Shanna efficiently masters complex facts and distills difficult legal issues to provide creative, practical solutions that align with her client’s business needs and interests. She has proven results representing companies, investors, and boards of directors in the investment management industry in shareholder and contractual disputes. In addition, she has experience representing clients in government and regulatory investigations related to securities.

Shanna has defended class actions involving claims of consumer fraud, false advertising and unfair and deceptive business practices, as well as shareholder and derivative suits.

Earlier in her career, Shanna served as a law clerk for the Honorable Candace Jackson-Akiwumi in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, the Honorable James E. Graves Jr. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and the Honorable Petrese B. Tucker in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Morgan Mouchette

Morgan Fraser Mouchette is a partner in the Matrimonial & Family Law group at Blank Rome LLP. Morgan concentrates her practice in all aspects of family law, including divorce, child custody, property distribution, spousal support, pre-and post-nuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, paternity agreements, and international child abduction. She provides both individuals and families with personalized and strategic support to navigate and move on from some of life’s most difficult outcomes.

In 2023, Morgan was recognized by Best Lawyers in America in Family Law in New York. In 2022, Morgan was listed as a Notable Diverse Leader in Law by Crain’s New York Business. Morgan has also been acknowledged as a  “Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal.

Morgan serves on several diversity-focused roles at Blank Rome including as co-chair of the firmwide Diversity and Inclusion Committee and co-chair of BR Black, the affinity group for colleagues of Black ethnographic backgrounds.  Outside the firm, Morgan serves as an officer and member of the board of directors of the New York Women’s Bar Association and is also a member of the board of trustees of the Garden School, a NYSAIS-accredited independent college preparatory school in Queens, New York.  Morgan is a graduate of the University of Miami, cum laude, and the Fordham University School of Law.

Nexus Sea

Nexus Sea focuses his practice on complex litigation and dispute resolution matters. Nexus is an experienced litigator and trial lawyer who has worked with Fortune 500 companies, financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies, representing clients in complex disputes in state and federal courts.

Nexus has experience in the areas of product liability defense and mass tort litigation, and held a leadership role as part of the national counsel team for a multi-national pharmaceutical company in the defense of its consumer product in various state courts across the country. One emerging area of law that Nexus focuses his practice on is the impact of Artificial Intelligence on existing product liability regimes.

Nneka Ukpai

Nneka is the Head of Financial Innovation at Better. In her current role, Nneka advises the tech unicorn on business and legal strategy, new financial technology products, and strategic investment. In addition, Nneka has created and operationalized new affiliates like the Better Opportunity Fund, a nonprofit arm focused on closing the racial and gender wealth gaps. In her prior role as Senior Director of Business and Legal Affairs, Nneka led cross-functional teams developing solutions to eliminate friction in homeownership and align the right incentives for borrowers to have the best customer experience imaginable.

Prior to Better, Nneka was a senior associate at a global law firm where she specialized in defending large corporations, boards and individual members of the C-suite in multi-jurisdictional enforcement actions. When Nneka is not practicing law, she is a two-time tech founder, angel investor, and advisor to startups and accelerators.

Nneka is a proud graduate of Howard University and Harvard Law School, where she currently serves on the distinguished teaching faculty of Harvard’s Trial Advocacy Workshop. Nneka also serves on the Board of Better UK, London’s largest digital mortgage broker, and on the Advisory Boards of Brex, Dandi, and Arara.io.

Brandon Vaughn

An advocate devoted to change and improving the likelihood of success for the next generation of black lawyers, Brandon immediately felt the need for getting the Black Biglaw Pipeline, Inc. off the ground and supporting its mission. After hearing similar stories from colleagues around the country of “failures” of black lawyers, he heard a number of common themes that seemed to be tied to the institution of Biglaw and not driven by individual performance.

Through the Black Biglaw Pipeline, Inc. Brandon hopes to see a change in not just an increase in the numeric statistics of black lawyers in BigLaw and corporate legal departments, but a change in how success is measured for black lawyers.

Our Advisory Board

Alisha Burgin - Partner - Perkins Coie LLP

Brian Idehen - Partner - BurgherGray LLP

Brianna Cummings - Associate - Freshfields LLP

Camille Bent - Partner - BakerHostetler LLP

David Mitchell - Deputy General Counsel - Balyasny Asset Management LP

Gerard Belfort - Associate - Greenberg Traurig LLP

Jeanine Conley - Managing Partner - Littler Mendelson PC

Kendra Norwood - Partner - Reed Smith LLP

Kristen Hardy - Assistant General Counsel & Assistant Corporate Secretary - Northwestern Mutual

Naheem Harris - Counsel - Vinson & Elkins LLP

Nate Smith - General Counsel - Norfolk Southern Corporation

Patrick Dorime - Partner - Ropes & Gray LLP

Paula Edgar - CEO - PGE Consulting Group LLC

Roben West - Associate - Carlton Fields PA

Roy Prather III - Partner - Beveridge & Diamond PC

Russell Franklin - Partner - Morgan Lewis LLP

Wyatt Robinson - Principal Corporate Counsel - Microsoft

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