With childhood aspirations of becoming a baseball player or an astronaut, it was the Scopes Monkey Trial and the political debates of Carter vs. Ford that swayed young John Simon toward the path of law. However, John took an unexpected detour through human resources that shaped his approach to being a General Counsel. In this episode of GCs in the House, Lina Guo chats with John Simon about how his HR experience created the opportunity for him to become GC and how authenticity became his guiding principle during one of the most challenging chapters in PG&E's history.
John R. Simon serves as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of San Francisco-based PG&E Corporation.
John joined PG&E in 2007 and has held several senior roles within the company including Interim Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President, Law, Strategy and Policy; and Executive Vice President, Corporate Services and Human Resources.
Before joining PG&E, John worked for TeleTech Holdings, Inc., a global provider of customer care technology and services, where he held leadership roles in legal and human resources including Executive Vice President, Global Human Capital.
John holds a bachelor's degree from Colorado College and a law degree from Georgetown University. Following law school and a judicial clerkship with United States District Judge William Skretny, he litigated commercial cases in state and federal courts with Proskauer Rose in Washington, D.C., and Hallenbeck Lascell, in Rochester, New York.
John is an active member of the Bar of New York; registered as in-house counsel in California; and an inactive member of the Bars of Illinois and Washington, D.C. He served on the Board of Directors of the California Minority Counsel Program in San Francisco. He also served on the board of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito from 2008 to 2018.
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