Veta T. Richardson, President and CEO of the Association of Corporate Counsel, sat down with Burford's Co-Chief Operating Officer David Perla to discuss ACC's approach to DEI, ACC Foundation's DEI maturity model, how law firms can add value for their clients and her new book, Take Six. An edited transcript of their conversation appears below.

David Perla: Under your leadership, ACC has launched a number of impactful and award-winning diversity initiatives, including the DEI Maturity Model. Can you tell us about these efforts and why you've made them a priority as ACC's President and Chief Executive Officer?

Veta T. Richardson:  Going back to when I was first hired at ACC, their big ambition was to become a global organization. ACC was founded as the American Corporate Counsel Association—very much US-centric. Although my predecessor as CEO was very successful in growing ACC, he left this one incomplete sliver of the pie: To take ACC global. As I came into the organization, I saw that it wasn't organized and ready to be global. We needed to have a much more global board, more global competencies on staff, greater multicultural awareness; basically, to use a lot of the lessons that I learned as part of my Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) experience to help organizations be more diverse and inclusive. ACC was living proof of the fact that when you have a more diverse board, diverse leadership and staff and increase your cultural competencies, you're better enabled to execute strategies that help your organization grow outside of your origins. That's what we experienced at ACC.