Aviation services company Bristow Group Inc. has landed former General Electric Co. in-house leader Victoria Lazar as its next general counsel, vice president and corporate secretary. 

Lazar succeeds Timothy Knapp, who departed the Houston-based company last year as part of a restructuring effort to reduce costs. The Bristow Group's deputy general counsel, Bo Underwood, took over as acting GC in the wake of Knapp's exit. 

Bristow, which describes itself as the “world's leading industrial aviation service provider,” has a global aviation fleet and offers helicopter transportation, search and rescue, and aircraft support services to government and civil organizations. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in May.

Bristow announced Lazar's appointment Monday. She will report to company president and CEO Don Miller and oversee “all legal aspects of the business, corporate compliance and insurance,” according to a news release. 

Miller touted Lazar's “extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, market transactions and integrations,” which he said would “be an asset to Bristow as we emerge from our financial restructuring and look to address some of the industry's biggest challenges like market consolidation, diversification and market oversupply.”

Attempts to speak with Lazar were not immediately successful. 

Victoria Lazar, general counsel of Bristow Group. Courtesy photo

She spent more than 11 years at General Electric in Houston, most recently as executive counsel with a focus on M&A. She previously served as associate counsel for GE Oil & Gas and was a key player in GE's merger with Baker Hughes in July 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile. Reports that a cash-strapped GE was seeking to sell its shares of Baker Hughes emerged about a year after the merger was finalized.

Lazar said in an interview earlier this year with The Texas Lawbook that “as much optionality as possible” was built into the merger to be “prepared for integration, but also for separation, if that's how things went.” 

After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1990, Lazar began her career as an associate at Baker Botts in Houston, where she focused on M&A work. She has a bachelor's degree in government from Cornell University. 

In 1996, Lazar went in-house as counsel of corporate acquisitions and finance for Electronic Data Systems, a tech company that billionaire Ross Perot founded in Plano, Texas. She went on to serve as legal manager and global chief legal officer at EDS and its subsidiaries until 2008, when Hewlett-Packard Co. acquired EDS for $13.9 billion. 

In discussing her approach to being an in-house leader during an interview with Profile Magazine, Lazar said there's “really nothing CEOs and other busy executives dislike more than complicated legal theories and long memos. 

“You need to explain things in a way that helps their decision-making process,” she added. “List options, provide pros and cons. Yours is not the only input they'll be receiving.”