Teleperformance Taps Ex-Paul Hastings Partner as New Legal Chief

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Teleperformance SE, a digital business services company, has appointed former Latham & Watkins and Paul Hastings partner Teri O’Brien to be its new chief legal and compliance officer.

O’Brien comes from Latham, which hired her in early 2022 to do capital markets work. Before that she spent nearly two decades at Paul Hastings, where she was most recently global co-chair of the securities and capital markets practice.

Teleperformance said O’Brien joined the company as of May 15 as its incoming legal and compliance chief. She spent the past month working on transition matters with Leigh Ryan, a longtime fellow former Paul Hastings partner, whom O’Brien will officially replace July 1.

Ryan is retiring after more than six years at Teleperformance, where she was also outside counsel to the company for 25 years, per a company statement.

The company said in March it would continue to provide content moderation work for TikTok Inc. Teleperformance’s US unit engaged Latham as it and TikTok came under scrutiny from a US Senate committee looking into harmful content.

Teleperformance, which considers content moderation a small portion of its business, handles customer service for technology giants such as Amazon.com Inc. O’Brien co-led a Latham team advising Teleperformance earlier this year on its $3.3 billion cash-and-stock bid for Majorel Group Luxembourg SA, a customer service company that last year discontinued tie-up talks with Sitel Group SA.

Daniel Julien, chairman and chief executive officer of Teleperformance, said in a statement that O’Brien has handled numerous acquisitions for the company and worked closely with its executive leadership. “She is the natural choice to build on Leigh’s successes as we continue our transformation to a digital business service company,” Julien said.

O’Brien and Ryan—whom Julien praised for helping “shape the growth of Teleperformance”—weren’t available for comment. O’Brien will oversee all aspects of the legal, compliance, and privacy departments at Teleperformance and be a member of the company’s leadership committee.

Bloomberg Law reported last year that Paul Hastings initially tapped O’Brien to be second-in-command to its former chairman-in-waiting, Ronan O’Sullivan, who cited “personal reasons” for not taking that role. He ultimately left the firm last year. O’Sullivan had been groomed for the top job by Paul Hastings chairman emeritus Seth Zachary, who was in fact succeeded by partner Frank Lopez.

During her time at Paul Hastings, O’Brien advised Teleperformance on its $400 million purchase of Senture in 2021. She also worked with O’Sullivan in counseling Teleperformance on its $1 billion buy of Intelenet in 2018. Departing legal chief Ryan, while at Paul Hastings, took the lead on Teleperformance’s $610 million acquisition of Aegis USA in 2014.

Teleperformance, headquartered in Paris, has operations in 91 countries, the company said. O’Brien and Ryan are based in the San Diego area.

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