Cost Center to Value Center: Managing Your Contracts as Assets - With an Eye on Risk & Compliance

Paul Stanukinas is the Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Grainger where he is responsible for advising the company's North American Sales & Services, Supplier Management, and Supply Chain organizations. In this role, he leads a high performing team of lawyers and para-professionals in the US, Canada, and Mexico in support of the company's commercial and government sales activities. Paul holds a JD from the DePaul University College of Law.

Edward Chick is Chief Growth Officer at ContractPodAi. He leads market positioning, channel growth, and revenue strategy, while supporting Tier-1 enterprise deals and accounts. A veteran of the contract lifecycle management (CLM) industry, Edward served as CLM GM at Apttus (now Conga) and World Wide Leader for Emptoris at IBM, and has held senior leadership roles at SAP, Siebel, and Janna. He has a deep and nuanced view of the legal tech and CLM landscape, having closed many hundreds of enterprise CLM sales to date. He is committed to partner enablement and execution excellence, as well as providing customers with the best possible outcomes in the marketplace. Originally from London, England, Edward has worked in Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, and is now based in Chicago.

Megan C. Ryan, Esq. serves as the Corporation’s Chief Legal Officer. As such, Ms. Ryan is the General Counsel/Counsel to the Board for NuHealth/NUMC and A Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility. She oversees all legal, corporate governance, privacy and ethics functions. Ms. Ryan has served as NuHealth/NUMC’s Chief Compliance, Privacy and Ethics officer responsible for investigating any suspicion of fraud, waste, or abuse and has been responsible for maintaining our strong compliance program since 2016. Additionally, she has served as the Chief Compliance Officer for the Nassau Queens Performing Provider System (“NQP”) in the New York State Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program (DSRIP) implementing and overseeing the execution of DSRIP, compliance practices at the NQP level and its partnering hubs (NUMC, North Shore and Catholic Health Systems) and has served as a voting director on the NQP PPS Board.

Ms. Ryan brings a wealth of experience and impressive achievements, with extensive academic and legal skills that have prepared her well for the challenges and opportunities of this crucial position. Ms. Ryan is admitted to the New York State Bar and the United States Supreme Court. Prior to joining the Nassau Health Care Corporation, Ms. Ryan served as in house corporate counsel for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company at the firm of Martyn, Toher and Martyn. She had previously worked as an associate attorney in the law firm of O’Reilly, Marsh and Corteselli, P.C., concentrating on banking, real estate, and litigation matters.

Ms. Ryan earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University as a Dean’s Scholar and Biology Chairman Circle honoree and earned her Juris Doctor from Saint John’s University School of Law. She is a member of the Nassau County Bar Association, Nassau County Women’s Bar Association, New York State Bar Association (NYSB Women in Law; Health Law Committees) and the American College of Hospital Executives. Her paper entitled “An Examination of Regulations and Decisions Concerning the Mandatory Retirement of State Judges” was published nationally in Court Review and was awarded first prize by the AJA. She is also a member of the Nassau County Women’s Bar Association.

Ms. Ryan is the recipient of the 2016 Long Island Power Woman Award. In 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Ms. Ryan presented at ALM’s national General Counsel Conferences on the subjects that included “Building a High Value Corporate Legal Department in Transformative Times” and “Gold Standards for Legal Department Ethics”. She presented at the “Women, Influence and Power in the Law” in Washington, DC in 2019 and 2020. She was recognized as a Power Woman in Business in 2016, 2019 and 2020. Additionally, LIBN named Ms. Ryan as a “Leader in the Law” in 2017. Megan was distinguished as a “Forty Under Forty “Award recipient in her role as General Counsel in 2018. Ms. Ryan was recognized by the Nassau County Commission of Human Rights for her efforts in World AIDS Day in 2020. She is the recipient of the Indian Association of Long Island Community Award for her work in accessing programs to the community. Ms. Ryan was honored as the Long Island Herald’s Distinguished Leader Award in 2020.

She served as a panelist on Long Island Herald’s Education and Covid-19 discussing hospital operations and school precautions during Covid-19 and discussed her role as General Counsel to the County’s only public hospital (a New York State Public Benefit Corp.) and President of the North Merrick School Board during the pandemic. Ms. Ryan also served as a member of the North Merrick School District’s Re-Entry Task Force. She served as a panelist for Saint John’s University’s School of Law Covid-19 Symposium discussing hospital operations and legal policies during Covid-19. Ms. Ryan’s efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic was recognized in the New York Law Journal and nationally by Law.Com.

Ms. Ryan is the 2020 Irish Echo Community Champion Award recipient and received the national Women, Influence & Power in the Law In House Leadership Award in the fall of 2020.

She serves as a board member for the Butterfly Initiative Project since 2019 and offers pro bono legal advice to the international organization Friends for Good Health.

Ms. Ryan has served as North Merrick Board of Education Trustee since 2018 and is currently serving her second term as BOE President.

Leah Yadegar is the Senior Corporate Counsel for Material, (formerly LRWGroup), a leading integrated marketing services company that leverages deep human understanding to help brands deliver material outcomes and experiences for their customers and the communities they serve.

Along with her General Counsel, Leah supports over 1250 employees in over 20 offices around the world. Leah is responsible for enterprise-wide legal, and risk management functions spanning across Material’s eleven entities. Leah most enjoys spearheading client contract negotiations, vendor onboarding, employee and independent contractor matters, data security and training others in the art of negotiation.

Before joining Material, Leah was a litigator in a boutique civil litigation practice in Beverly Hills. Leah has been active on the board of several international non-profit organizations and in 2017-2018 was appointed the Director of the StandWithUs legal fellowship, which provides practical, hands-on legal training to law students from the five Los Angeles based law schools. Leah holds two bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California, Santa Barbara in History of Public Policy and Sociology (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa), a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law, and a Certificate in A.D.R. from the prestigious Straus Institute.

Outside of her passion for law, business and negotiating, Leah is an avid international traveler, and enjoys skiing, and tennis. When she’s not at work, she is busy running after her three young sons and adventuring with her attorney husband.