Regions Financial Corp. Photo: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com

Tara Ann Plimpton, an in-house leader who has climbed the corporate legal department ladder at General Electric Co. for nearly two decades, has joined Regions Financial Corp. as general counsel. 

Plimpton is expected to start her new job at the Birmingham, Alabama-based bank holding company April 13. She succeeds Fournier "Boots" Gale, who has served as general counsel since 2011. 

Gale plans to step down as Region's top lawyer March 31, but will remain with the company in a senior advisory role with a $120,000 salary, until he retires Dec. 1, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. 

Gale, who also served as corporate secretary, had a base salary of $584,000 and received nearly $2.5 million in total compensation last year. Regions appointed its chief governance officer, Hope Mehlman, to take over as corporate secretary when Gale steps down later this month.

Plimpton was not available for an interview Tuesday. She will serve on Regions' executive leadership team and oversee the company's legal, government affairs and corporate governance departments. 

Tara Plimpton. Photo: Rebecca Breyer for ALM

She spent the past 17 years with General Electric, where she most recently served as the Atlanta-based general counsel of GE global operations. In that role, she oversaw a worldwide team of more than 450 professionals who handled compliance, trade, intellectual property, labor and transactional support.  

"My team and I built a successful legal shared services model and applied AI, automation, and analytics to improve efficiencies and better position GE's legal department for the future," Plimpton states in her LinkedIn profile.

She added that as the company experienced CEO turnover—former CEO John Flannery was removed in 2018 after a year in the role—and moved toward decentralization amid business woes, "my team and I managed through a complete pivot, maintaining morale, employee engagement, and high performance as legal services were transitioned back to GE's business lines."

In a 2012 interview with Corporate Counsel affiliate Daily Report, Plimpton spoke about the importance of being prepared for the unexpected. 

"What is around the corner that I am not anticipating today?" she said. "I am constantly working with my team to build processes and warning systems that will help us identify issues in advance or before they become bigger problems. But I just don't feel like we are ever doing enough."

Her soon-to-be boss, Regions president and CEO John Turner, said in a prepared statement that Plimpton "brings extensive legal and operational experience in highly complex and regulated industries to Regions.

"Throughout her career, she has developed expertise in law department operations, including litigation and compliance, as well as government and community affairs. Tara is a strong leader and will be a tremendous addition to our team at Regions, and we look forward to working with her," he added. 

After graduating from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1994, Plimpton clerked for Nevada Supreme Court Chief Judge C. Clifton Young. She went on to serve as managing partner at Brooke Shaw Plimpton and Zumpft, a firm that advised corporate clients in the manufacturing, agricultural and tourism sectors, before she joined GE. 

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