As our Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Tracey Yurko leads the legal and corporate governance functions for Bridgewater, managing legal risk across the firm and its funds. This month she was recognized by Corporate Counsel as a recipient of their "2020 Women, Influence & Power in Law” award, honoring top lawyers who have made a remarkable difference in the legal profession.
Tracey came to Bridgewater in 2012 and in 2019 executed on a transformational redesign of our legal and regulatory team. The re-design shifted from a pillar structure based on subject matter expertise to a cross-functional design centered around the multi-dimensional needs of internal clients. Tracey and her team also found new opportunities to leverage technology and outside service providers, effectively freeing up our legal professionals to spend more time focused on Bridgewater’s core strategies.
A central component of Tracey’s leadership is her conviction for championing diversity and inclusion. She pursues this through both programmatic means — such as collecting diversity metrics from the key outside firms we employ and allocating a budget for every department professional to participate in diversity and inclusion industry groups — as well as through her own personal touch. One of Bridgewater’s senior attorneys described Tracey’s effect: “The legal profession tends towards conservativism and staid routine — it is very hard to rock the boat, whether as an associate or a client. Against this backdrop, Tracey has been a champion of women. Her willingness to lead and mentor, to connect with the women who work for her personally, and to show that she recognizes and cares deeply about overarching issues that tend to impact women inspires confidence among all the lawyers in the department. In addition, in her oversight of our outside counsel partners, Tracey has sent a clear message that Bridgewater expects its outside counsel to promote diversity and inclusion within the legal profession.”
Reflecting on this recognition, Tracey shared: “Bridgewater’s legal and regulatory group is an incredible team of professionals. Not only experts in their practice areas but also innovative, multidisciplinary problem-solvers who constantly push my own and each other’s thinking. I am proud of this team and our accomplishments and I am grateful to Bridgewater’s leadership and community for supporting our efforts.”
Read more about Tracey’s recognition: https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2020/10/29/women-influence-power-in-law-2020-tracey-yurko/