The Next GC 30

Honoring the leaders who keep legal running.

Ask a great general counsel who keeps their department running, and they answer without hesitating. It’s the Associate General Counsel who carried the IPO, the Deputy General Counsel who took the 2am breach call and walked into the boardroom with a plan by 9. We’ve heard that answer in more than 100 conversations now. The Next GC 30 is that answer, made public.

Each year we honor 30 of them, across every title that carries the same weight, on a published list and a billboard in Times Square, held to exactly the same standard as The GC 30.

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100K+People reached
46Legal leaders
120+Conversations
3Times Square editions
Ron Klain
Supreet Chinnan
Alan Lewis
Catherine Lacavera
Hanna Steinbach
Anna Lee
Kirsten Daru
Brian Bloch
Rishi Varma
Mark A. Smolik
Tarek Sultani
Kim Nakamaru

The leaders we’ve featured head legal at

  • OpenAI
  • Airbnb
  • Cargill
  • Google
  • Magic Leap
  • Relativity Space
  • SimpliSafe
  • OpenAI
  • Airbnb
  • Cargill
  • Google
  • Magic Leap
  • Relativity Space
  • SimpliSafe
  • OpenAI
  • Airbnb
  • Cargill
  • Google
  • Magic Leap
  • Relativity Space
  • SimpliSafe
  • NETGEAR
  • CB Insights
  • 6sense
  • 8x8
  • Coherent
  • Harness
  • EFI
  • NETGEAR
  • CB Insights
  • 6sense
  • 8x8
  • Coherent
  • Harness
  • EFI
  • NETGEAR
  • CB Insights
  • 6sense
  • 8x8
  • Coherent
  • Harness
  • EFI
Times Square

Legal leaders, up in lights over Times Square.

Great lawyers rarely get the spotlight, so we built the brightest one there is: a billboard over Times Square.

Nominations open Sep 2026 · Edition 4

The Next GC 30

30 deputy, associate and division counsel who already carry the weight of the role, honored while the recognition still changes their trajectory.

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Live now

The GC 30

30 of the top General Counsels globally, honored so the next generation can see exactly who to become.

See The GC 30

Three editions already up on Times Square

Apr 2026

Top 40 Innovative Legal Leaders

Nov 2025

Top 30 Innovative GCs in the US

Aug 2025

Top 50 Strategic AI Legal Minds

The process

How it works.

By invitation and nomination. No fees. No sponsorships. Ever.

  1. Invitation and nomination

    You get here one of two ways. A peer puts your name forward, or we reach out. There is no fee, ever.

  2. The conversation

    A one-hour podcast about your journey, your learnings, the challenges you faced, and what made you who you are, recorded for the lawyers coming up behind you.

  3. Jury review

    A jury of retired General Counsels and Chief Legal Officers reviews every conversation before it runs. Peers decide who makes the list, never sponsors.

  4. Your approval

    Nothing goes live until you approve it. Every word, every cut.

  5. The Next GC 30

    The list, and the billboard

    Your name joins the published Next GC 30 and your face goes up over Times Square, on the same billboard that carries The GC 30.

I’ve been on a bunch of podcasts and I think not everyone prepares and lays it out the way you have... I appreciate what you’re doing.
Kim Nakamaru
Kim Nakamaru
General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Relativity Space

Who came before

The room you would be joining.

The people who run legal for some of the most consequential companies in the world have already sat down for this conversation. The nominations for this list come from rooms like this one.

Ron Klain Airbnb

Ron Klain

Airbnb

Chief Legal Officer

Former White House Chief of Staff

Supreet Chinnan Google

Supreet Chinnan

Google

Sr Director, Cloud GTM Legal

Berkeley engineer turned Google lawyer

Alan Lewis OpenAI

Alan Lewis

OpenAI

Legal Counsel

30+ years of Silicon Valley tech law

Catherine Lacavera Turing

Catherine Lacavera

Turing

Chief Legal Officer

Led Google's litigation for 15+ years

Hanna Steinbach Harness

Hanna Steinbach

Harness

General Counsel

Took Medallia public, then private

Anna Lee EFI

Anna Lee

EFI

Chief Legal Officer

UCLA biologist turned Berkeley lawyer

Kirsten Daru NETGEAR

Kirsten Daru

NETGEAR

GC & CPO

Testified before Congress on Big Tech

Brian Bloch SimpliSafe

Brian Bloch

SimpliSafe

Chief Legal Officer

Legal 500 GC Powerlist honoree

A really, really impressive group of people. I’m honored to be included among them.
Alan Lewis
Alan Lewis
Legal Counsel, OpenAI

Why this exists

Finally, the celebration the person who is next deserves.

The future leaders of the profession are doing career-defining work today. Now their stories stand in front of hundreds of thousands of young lawyers deciding who to become.

Photon Legal From the desk of Amit Koshal

To the person who is next,

I have now recorded more than 100 conversations with legal leaders. At some point in almost every one, once the recorder has been going long enough that they forget it is there, the same thing happens. They stop talking about themselves and start talking about someone else.

There is always a deputy. Someone who ran the hardest matter of the year, who held the room during the acquisition, who the GC quietly says is better than they were at that stage. And when I ask whether that person has ever been recognized for any of it, the answer is almost always no.

That struck me as a strange way to run a profession. We wait until someone has the title before we say the thing that would have helped them get it.

Every leader I have interviewed says a version of the same thing: somebody once took a chance on me. This is what that looks like from the other side.

The conversation takes under an hour. What you say in it will outlast both of us.

Amit Koshal

Amit Koshal

Host, Photon Spotlight

The podcast... having somebody who has lived and breathed and knows what good general counsels do, asking me questions kind of forces the conversation. For that reason alone, I’m very interested in participating.
Matthew Campobasso
Matthew Campobasso
Chief Legal Officer, Zone & Co
I think about my humble background and humble beginnings... it’s always inspiring to hear those. If I can inspire someone, I’m happy to share my side of it.
Anna Lee
Anna Lee
Chief Legal Officer, EFI

Questions

Asked and answered.

Who qualifies for The Next GC 30?

Deputy and associate general counsels, assistant GCs, VPs of Legal, Heads of IP, division and regional counsel, chiefs of staff to the GC, senior counsel running a function, and corporate secretaries. The title varies. The weight doesn’t. We screen on what you own, not what you’re called.

How are the 30 chosen?

You get here one of two ways: a general counsel we’ve featured puts your name forward, or we reach out directly. A jury of retired General Counsels and Chief Legal Officers reviews every conversation, and peers decide who makes the list. Never sponsors.

What does accepting actually involve?

First, a 15-minute call with Amit. Then under an hour on the record about the road so far. The jury reviews the conversation, you approve every word, and your name joins the list and goes up over Times Square.

What does my company see before anything goes live?

Everything. You approve every word and every cut, and if your comms or legal team wants to review it first, that’s normal and we wait.

Is there a fee at any point?

No fees. No sponsorships. Ever. A seat on this list can’t be bought, which is exactly what makes it worth having.

Why does Photon Legal run this?

We ran the first edition about a year ago because we wanted to give back to the community we serve. The reception those general counsels got told us everything, and it became a tradition: every edition since has highlighted more of the people who inspire the hundreds of thousands of lawyers coming up behind them. This is edition 4, and the first with two lists.

Accept your nomination

Your place on The Next GC 30.
Your story on the record.
Your face in Times Square.

Somewhere, a lawyer 3 years behind you is wondering whether they will ever figure it out. Show them what the next step actually looks like.

Accept your nomination Nominate a leader

By invitation and nomination. No fees. No sponsorships. Ever.