Adrienne Prentice, Director, Legal- Account Support, Hewlett-Packard Co, 32
Job: HP formed a new legal team as of Feb. 1 that provides support to our enterprise accounts. Essentially, each attorney is the “mini-general counsel” to a handful of our internal account teams, which are largely operated as independent businesses, some with annual revenue in the hundreds of millions. I co-lead the Legal- Account Support team in the Americas region—consisting of about 35 attorneys in the US, Canada and Latin America. (Shameless plug: still recruiting junior and mid-level attorneys if anyone is interested!)
Community involvement: Last year, I participated in the “Street Law” program teaching children about law, democracy and human rights. I also recently completed training through the National Veterans Legal Services Program that will enable me to represent veterans in the Court of Federal Claims. In the past, I represented an unaccompanied minor navigate immigration proceedings through Kids In Need of Defense. I helped prevent the deportation of a 12-year-old girl back to her home country where there was no one to properly care for her and her life was threatened on multiple occasions. Today, she lives with her father and wants to be a police officer.
Career highlights: I worked with a great team of attorneys under enormous time pressure to close athenahealth’s largest deal to date with the top Catholic healthcare system in the country. Once announced, the transaction led to a 15% share price increase for athenahealth. This was one of the first sizable cloud deals in the healthcare sector, an industry that is still reticent to adopt the cloud due to reliability and privacy concerns. It was a cutting-edge solution with significant risk at stake for both parties.
Why this career: I studied labor relations during college. I enrolled in law school planning to become an employment attorney with an interest in arbitration. During my time as a summer associate, however, I became interested in corporate and tech transactions. The rest is history!
Where you grew up: Ormond Beach, FL. Depending on who I’m speaking with, I describe it as immediately north of Daytona Beach or about an hour south of Jacksonville. Yes—spring break, NASCAR, bike week. My parents are still there.
Why DC: I came straight from undergrad to go to law school. I figured this was the place to be when pursuing a legal career. I also married a local boy. Sometimes I miss the beach and get frustrated with the fast pace (and traffic!), but DC is home and I can’t think of anywhere else I would want to live.
First job: Hallmark. It was the height of the Beanie Baby craze—very wild times to be working at a card store. Looking back, it was my first experience managing demanding (and irrational?!) clients. My internal and external clients in my legal career have been a piece of cake in comparison.
Family: I live in DC with my husband, Jackson, and our chocolate lab, Miller. I recently convinced my younger brother to relocate to DC and am currently working my parents to do the same. Whenever we get the chance, we get together with my older brother and his family, who live in Knoxville, TN. Next family trip on the books is the Taylor Swift concert in Nashville! All the boys are seriously amped.
Free time: I enjoy hot yoga and try to go a few times a week. The combined meditative and physical benefits of yoga make it the perfect exercise for me. I spend weekends trying to keep up with DC’s newest restaurants—thrilled at the transformation of the city in the past three to five years. I also am a huge Nats fan—so you may see me at the ballpark. In between, my nose is in a book, usually historical fiction.
10 years from now: I just discovered this great neighborhood in Bethesda where I would love to buy a home. If my husband and I are lucky enough, we can fill it with a couple of children and lots of books, music and love. HP is an enormous company with an entrepreneurial spirit. There is so much to learn here from brilliant and collegial people across the world. It would be great to move up the ladder in the legal department or make a switch to the business operations team. Alternatively, working with startup companies for most of my career, I’ve always had the itch to start something new.
Favorite vacation spot: Cape Hatteras Island, NC. Given the pace and intensity of my job, while I appreciate the foreign and exotic, my favorite vacations are the ones where I do absolutely nothing. I will literally sit in a rocker and watch traffic drive by in Hatteras. Perfection.
Bucket list: Learn to play tennis. Write a book. Start a social enterprise related to gender equality. Buy my Mom a Triumph TR6.
Daily habit: Hitting the snooze button. Eating gummy bears; everyone in the office knows I get “hangry” so there is usually a bag of Haribo laying around somewhere.
Startling fact: At age 30, doctors discovered that I had the early formations of a gill in my neck. No joke, like a fish gill. Turns out my body didn’t quite pick up on the human evolutionary development that we switched from gills to lungs. It was removed a couple of years ago. As my Dad said, just waiting for my wings to turn up…
