Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary Tracey Brady Yurko joined a group of legal industry leaders for a panel discussion hosted by the Practicing Law Institute. During their conversation, Tracey discussed her career trajectory and path to Bridgewater and reflected on what has been a decade of transformational, professional growth for her personally and for and the legal team at Bridgewater, noting: “When I got here years ago, the legal department was pretty nascent. I have really had the opportunity to build it out and have a willingness to jump into all different kind of roles, from legal expertise areas to business continuity for my department. Over time, I oversaw more and more of the department, leading into the leadership role I hold today.”
Managing with the principles of change and improvement, Tracey shared her department’s success identifying operational inefficiencies and implementing technology-based solutions. She emphasized how her team’s ability to leverage technology-enabled legal support for specific, repeatable tasks has made an important difference for Bridgewater’s lawyers by giving them back valuable time to focus on the complex, high-level work that requires the attention of a strategic thought partner, which is what they came here to be.
During her time at Bridgewater, Tracey has also led her team through company growth and organizational change. Reflecting on this growth, she remarked that “as you get larger, to the size our institutions are, you must take a step back and make sure that you are keeping entrepreneurial thought alive and not making processes too difficult to get creative things done.” As Bridgewater grew, the importance of upholding Bridgewater’s culture and philosophy of “constant change, constant improvement” remained top of mind for her. For Tracey and her department, having a culture in which raising mistakes is an obligation has been a comfort more than anything else.