On April 29, 2026, AABANY’s In-House Counsel Committee hosted a fireside chat with Linda Lu, Chief Legal and Risk Officer of Zip Co Limited, at offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Over 40 attendees gathered to hear Lu discuss her 25-year career across prominent financial services and insurance companies, offering insights into reaching the top as an Asian American woman.
Moderated by Dwight Yoo, Partner at Skadden and AABANY Board Director, the conversation covered Lu’s strategic career pivots, self-promotion, identity in corporate settings, and the role of AI in law. Lu structured her retrospective in reverse, starting with her current role at Zip, drawn by its female leadership and “low ego” culture. She recounted leaving TransUnion after a promised CLO succession plan failed for the second time in her career, reinforcing the need to remain open to outside opportunities.
Earlier, at Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Lu transitioned from Chief Litigation Officer to General Counsel for the largest business unit after mentors stressed the need for CLOs to understand the business. This period, marked by intense corporate politics, shaped her “integrity line” philosophy—the point where a professional must decide if a workplace battle compromises personal values.
Lu introduced the PIE model for career advancement: Performance (10%), Image (30%), and Exposure (60%). She cautioned that brilliance without exposure is insufficient. Lu also addressed the specific challenges she faced as an Asian American woman, including being mistaken for a court reporter, and shared a moment of “overcorrecting” with aggressive assertiveness. She emphasized that the integrity line is a personal threshold for deciding when to leave a toxic environment.
Regarding leadership, Lu distinguished between the operational work of an individual contributor and the strategy and influence of a leader, warning that promotion means less substantive legal work. On the subject of sponsorship, which was a recurring theme in diversity conversations, Linda offered practical guidance. She suggested to the audience to take risks, raise their hand, and above all, make their boss look good. Sponsors are not recruited through eloquent requests, they are earned through visible and reliable performance that reflects well on the people above you.
Lu also shared the personal costs of her ambition, including returning to work six weeks after her first child’s birth—a mistake that she believed set an unhealthy precedent. Perhaps the most poignant moment of the evening involved Lu’s reflections on the personal trade-offs of her career trajectory. She recounted an episode when her second-grade son won a school contest for a story that was later staged as a play. Arriving early to secure a front-row seat, Lu expected a whimsical performance. The play, entitled My Day at the Zoo, began with a mother turning away from her child to answer a work call, leading to the boy getting lost. While the narrative eventually shifted toward a happy ending with talking animals, the image of the mother’s distraction remained a haunting symbol of the professional struggles and the “integrity line” Lu negotiated throughout her journey as a parent and a leader.
The discussion concluded with AI. Lu reported that Zip uses AI tools company-wide with a policy of no headcount reduction associated with use of the technology. She views AI as accelerating “Performance” but unable to replace human judgment, trust, and relationship-building. Her final message was: “People who use AI will survive more than people who don’t.”
The evening closed with further networking. AABANY’s In-House Counsel Committee thanked Linda Lu for her candor and Skadden for hosting. To learn more about AABANY’s In-House Counsel Committee, click here.
