Role at BarkerGilmore
Helen is a Strategic Advisor and Coach at BarkerGilmore with an unmatched depth and breadth of experience in the financial services industry. Her areas of expertise include conducting operational reviews of legal functions; assessing and hiring lawyers; building high-performance teams; structuring the legal department to support the needs and goals of the business and to be best positioned for the proactive and early identification, assessment, and management of legal and reputational risk; and coaching and advising General Counsel and senior members of in-house legal departments.
Board Affiliations and Accolades
Helen is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, where she serves on the Corporate Governance and Investment Committees. She previously served on the Board of Directors of BlackRock, Inc.
Helen is active in many nonprofit organizations. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wistar Institute, an independent biomedical research institute, where she previously served as Board Chair and currently is Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee and a member of the Executive Committee. In addition, she is a member of the Boards of Advisors of both the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Law and Economics, and she is a Fellow and member of the Board of Trustees of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Helen also is a member of The American Law Institute.
Helen has been a Lecturer in Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she co-taught a course named Challenges Facing General Counsel. In addition, she has served as an arbitrator in complex disputes.
Education
Helen earned her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Additionally, she received her M.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Expertise
Executive Search, Leadership Development, Organizational Strategy, Succession Management
Experience
Helen retired from The PNC Financial Services Group, where she served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. She was General Counsel for more than 18 years and a member of the corporation’s Executive Committee. In addition to leading the legal function, Helen’s direct reports included heads of regulatory affairs and corporate secretary functions. Before joining PNC, she was a partner and commercial litigator in the law firm of Ballard Spahr, where she also co-chaired the firm’s health law group.
Industry Experience
Financial, Non-Profit, Healthcare & Life Sciences
Helen's Insights
In today's rapidly evolving professional landscape, legal firms and departments are embracing hybrid and remote work models to accommodate changing work dynamics. Effectively managing and fostering motivation, engagement, and growth [...]
Lawyers are people too, you know. It’s a simple premise that yields big results. In a recent conversation with a few of our Strategic Advisors and [...]
Legal leaders who aspire to the ultimate legal professional achievement, the General Counsel, spend their careers making tactical decisions to achieve this goal. While there are infinite paths to becoming [...]
