How I Got Here: Jennifer Green ’12

What exactly do you do?

Since late 2023, I’ve led a team of attorneys and paraprofessionals that supports the development, commercialization, and rollout of our proprietary, AI-driven restaurant technology platform, Byte by Yum!, to our 60,000-plus restaurants worldwide. My team also partners with our Global Enterprise Technology Solutions, Cybersecurity, and AI & Data Analytics teams on a range of exciting initiatives that advance our overall digital and technology strategy.

Did you have tech experience when you took the job?

No, not in the technical sense, although, as a “digital native” millennial, I have a natural affinity toward, and curiosity around, all things digital and technology. That said, I am thankful for a team and colleagues who have been generous in sharing their knowledge and expertise. And I have done a fair amount of “self-educating,” as I have done with previous roles I’ve taken on that have been outside of my core area of expertise. My role requires a relatively in-depth understanding of our technology products and services, primarily from a feature and functionality perspective versus needing to know how to write code, for example. I also encourage my team to go deep on understanding our products and services, as it builds credibility and trust with our client teams and other stakeholders. As a corporate and transactional lawyer by training, I’ve also had to deepen my knowledge in areas of the law like privacy and the emerging AI legal and regulatory framework.

Fundamentally, however, I am in a commercial legal leadership role, so I spend most of my time partnering closely with Yum’s chief digital & technology officer/president of Byte by Yum! and other members of the Digital & Technology Leadership Team in enabling and bringing to life our strategic ambitions in the digital and technology space.

What’s the best thing about your job?

Every day is different. It’s like working for a tech start-up with all of its excitement and opportunities to learn, grow, and stretch. It’s a privilege to work in such a fast-paced environment where things are constantly changing but in the context of the world’s largest restaurant company.

What’s most challenging about being a leader?

Challenging may not be the right word to describe it. I think the privilege of leadership comes with a great responsibility to the people who are in your charge, and I am constantly thinking about the well-being of my team. Do they feel properly resourced and supported? Are they working on things that ladder up to what their ultimate career ambitions are? One of the sayings of a leader I previously reported to, which has stuck with me, is that the job of a leader is to create leaders who create other leaders. That is so powerful and a perfect encapsulation of the model of servant leadership that I subscribe to. My job today is not necessarily to be the best or smartest lawyer on my team. My role and contribution to the organization is to help shape the strategy and empower and equip people to deliver on that.

What was your first job at Yum when you joined the company almost 10 years ago?

I was hired in 2016 and spent roughly the first year of my tenure at Yum working on the spin-off of the former China division and related financing transactions. It was right up my alley in terms of building on my experiences from Davis Polk and a brief in-house stint at Credit Suisse. At the time, the China division was a huge part of the Yum portfolio and represented a significant portion of its earnings. As a new, more junior attorney at Yum, I was given what felt like a significant amount of responsibility for leading and executing substantive and important work, including the process of getting Yum China listed on the New York Stock Exchange and registered with its stock transfer agent; drafting organization documents, board committee charters, corporate policies, and other required documents; and advising on overall transaction documentation and public filings.

After graduating from Columbia Law, you spent two years at Davis Polk & Wardwell. How did you make the move to in-house counsel? 

While I appreciated my 2L summer and two years as an associate at Davis Polk—and the opportunity to work on deals that I could read about in The Wall Street Journal—I knew, even as a first-year associate, that I wanted to be a business leader. I had the clarity of conviction to discuss this with partners and tell them I might want to go into a business role one day. And I can remember a partner at the time saying, “If you want to go into a business role, not just in-house as a lawyer, then you should probably leave the firm sooner rather than later and perhaps go work at an investment bank or consulting firm.”

Although I did not take that particular partner’s advice, I was lucky because there was a secondment program where Davis Polk was loaning associates gratis to its clients for several months, and I went to work at Credit Suisse. And after about six months, Credit Suisse asked me to stay on full-time. And that’s how I made the transition in-house.

You have had nonlegal roles at Yum, including as vice president of global mergers and acquisitions. Did you miss doing legal work?

During my time outside the legal department, I gained a greater appreciation for all the ways in which lawyers can and do add value. I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing clients and teams while at Yum, but sometimes, it can feel like there’s a stigma attached to in-house legal departments—as a cost center versus a revenue-generating function or as the Department of “No.” During my time in nonlegal roles, I gained a greater appreciation for the value that excellent in-house lawyers can bring to an organization and the influence we can have over business outcomes. A strategic, commercially savvy, and, yes, risk-conscious lawyer who has clearly demonstrated a commitment to helping the business achieve its objectives can absolutely impact the shape, strategy, and trajectory of a business.

What’s the key to being an effective in-house lawyer?

You have to demonstrate that you have skin in the game. You have to demonstrate to your stakeholders, your clients, that you are as invested in getting to an outcome and moving the business forward as they are. We have equal accountability. I like to educate my client teams that my role is not to say yes or no. I’m here to educate them about the complex web of legal, contractual, and regulatory requirements that we operate within, understand how much risk we want to take on as an organization, and ultimately drive the business forward through that lens.

Did you always want to practice corporate law?

Yes. I have an uncle who’s a corporate lawyer, so I understood that not all lawyers are litigators, and I didn’t want to be a litigator. I knew I wanted to speak the language of business and do deals. I wanted to open up The New York Times and see myself and the work I do reflected in the news, as insane as that sounds.

This interview has been edited and condensed.