Sharon Zezima.GoPro's Ex-GC, Sharon Zezima, Becomes Top Lawyer at Cannabis Vaping Company
Zezima's newly created role of GC and corporate secretary at PAX Labs Inc. is the second high-profile in-house move in recent months to a vaping company.
October 17, 2018 at 04:15 PM
3 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Corporate Counsel
Sharon Zezima, the former general counsel at GoPro Inc., has moved to cannabis vaporizer maker PAX Labs Inc., making her the second high-profile legal boss in recent months to venture into the vaping world.
According to LinkedIn, Zezima has been named to the newly created role of GC and corporate secretary at PAX. In addition to managing the company's legal function, Zezima will also help PAX “establish cannabis as a force for good,” her LinkedIn profile said.
“It was important to me to join a mission-based company that has a really strong mission beyond making great consumer products,” Zezima said of her move during an interview with Corporate Counsel Thursday.
In addition to overseeing the legal department, which includes about six people, Zezima said she also will help guide the company's strategy as the startup grows and the industry changes–a role she said she has played in prior positions.
Zezima, a tech in-house veteran, led GoPro's legal department for nearly five years before she left the action-camera company last April amid a restructuring. Prior to joining GoPro in the fall of 2013, she was vice president, GC and corporate secretary at SaaS marketing software company Marketo Inc. and prior to that VP and deputy GC at video-game giant Electronic Arts Inc. She was in private practice for about eight years before moving in-house.
Under Zezima's leadership, GoPro in 2016 was named Legal Department of the Year in the category for mergers and acquisitions among emerging companies by Corporate Counsel affiliate The Recorder for its purchase of two video-editing software companies.
Throughout her career, Zezima has been a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion, a priority she said she plans to foster at PAX, noting that CEO Bharat Vasan's LinkedIn profile states, “now hiring with a focus on diversity” and describing Vasan, whom Zezima worked with at EA, as “a very good leader who believes that the culture of the workplace is important.”
Founded in 2007, PAX makes loose-leaf vaporizers and related accessories for dry herbs. The company also developed the popular vaporizer JUUL, which was spun out as a separate company in 2017. Last summer, JUUL Labs Inc. announced that Gerald “Jerry” Masoudi, the former executive VP, GC and corporate secretary at leading biopharmaceutical company Celgene Corp., had been named chief legal officer.
Zezima earned her degree from the University of Chicago Law School.
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