Doreen is Co-Managing Partner of the U.S. and a member of the Executive Committee. She also previously served as the Practice Group Leader for the Global Governance & Advisory Practice Group; Compensation, Governance and ERISA / Private Clients.

She focuses on a wide variety of compensation-related matters, including the design and implementation of retention and compensation plans, disclosure and regulatory compliance, and employment negotiations with senior executives. She has advised both U.S. and non-U.S. issuers on corporate governance and regulatory requirements relating to compensation and benefits matters and high profile individuals in their employment and severance negotiations.

Doreen regularly advises Altice USA, CVS Health Corporation, Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Genmab, IMAX Corporation, JetBlue Airways, Lovesac, Promethean, Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, Telus International, The Chefs' Warehouse and Valvoline, amongst others in relation to regular executive compensation, disclosure and governance advice.

She has been a resident in the Frankfurt, London and Bay Area offices of the firm. She is a lecturer in Executive Compensation at the Berkeley School of Law.

Experience

Representative matters

Technology and Telecom

Altice USA, Inc., in its separation and spin-off from Altice N.V., including its initial public offering of common stock and Altice N.V. in its $17.7 billion purchase of Cablevision

Citrix Systems Inc. in its acquisition of Wrike, Inc.

Hitachi in its $9.5 billion acquisition of GlobalLogic Inc.

Intapp in its $314 million initial public offering and Nasdaq listing

Liberty Global plc in its acquisition of Cable and Wireless Communications plc in a public transaction valued at $8.2 billion; and its $23.3 billion acquisition of Virgin Media plc and as parent of Virgin Media in its joint venture with O2

NIC Inc. in its $2.3 billion all-cash acquisition by Tyler Technologies Inc.

Quest Diagnostics in various matters, including its acquisitions of Athena Diagnostics, Inc. and Celera Corporation; and its $2 billion acquisition of AmeriPath

Salesforce.com in its $2.8 billion public tender offer for Demandware, Inc. and in its acquisition of private company Quip, Inc.

SAP SE and Qualtrics International Inc. in the carve out of Qualtrics from SAP, consisting of Qualtrics' $1.55 billion public offering; Qualtrics International in its $1.125 billion acquisition of Clarabridge and; the subsequent $12.5 billion sale of Qualtrics Silver Lake and CPP investments

Telus International in connection with its NYSE listing and its acquisition of Lionbridge AI

Texas Instruments Incorporated in its $900 million acquisition of substantially all of the assets related to the operations of a 300-mm semiconductor factory in Lehi, Utah from Micron Technology, Inc.

Vice Media in its Chapter 11 filing and related employee compensation matters

VMware on its acquisitions of Octarine, Datrium and SaltStack, Inc.

Vontier Corporation in its definitive agreement to acquire DRB Systems, from affiliates of New Mountain Capital for approximately $965 million

WebMD Health Corporation in its sale to KKR in a $2.8 billion tender offer

Zillow, Inc. in its acquisition of competitor Trulia, Inc. in a stock-for-stock transaction

 

Healthcare and Life Sciences

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals in its acquisition of Lowell Therapeutics

Atrion Corporation in its pending $815 million merger with Nordson Corp

CVS Health in its $69 billion acquisition of Aetna, and its $10.6 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health

GlaxoSmithKline plc in its $5.1 billion acquisition of Tesaro

Ambipar Response's business, an environmental services provider, in its combination with HPX

invoX Pharma Limited, on its acquisition of F-star Therapeutics, Inc. for $161 million

Novartis' $3.9 billion acquisition of Advanced Accelerator Applications

 

Transport and Industrials

Albemarle Corporation in its $6.2 billion merger with Rockwood Holdings, Inc. and its $3.2 billion sale of its Chemetall Surface Treatment Business to BASF

B/E Aerospace, Inc. on its process to separate its industry-leading businesses into two independent, publicly traded companies, including management team transitions and appointments related to the separation

The Dow Chemical Company in its $130 billion transaction with DuPont involving combination of the two companies and separating them into three publicly trading entities and the resulting $50 billion spin-off of Dow Inc.; its $5 billion Reverse Morris Trust transaction with Olin; its acquisition of Rohm and Haas Corporation; its $1.67 billion auction sale of Morton Salt to K+S Aktiengesellschaft; its $1.63 billion auction sale of Styron to Bain Capital; its auction sale of the global polypropylene business to Braskem; and advice to Dow on related compensation and pension matters

Laxness in connection with its $1.075 billion acquisition of Emerald Kalama Chemical

LyondellBasell Industries N.V. in its $2.25 billion acquisition of A. Schulman, Inc.

KMG Chemicals $1.6 billion acquisition by Cabot Microelectronics Corporation

 

Consumer, Food and Retail

Bojangles, Inc. in its sale to Durational Capital Management and The Jordan Company in a public company merger transaction

The Chefs' Warehouse in its acquisition of Chef Middle East, a leading distributer of specialty food and beverage products in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman, from Gulf Capital

Tire Rack Holdings, Inc. in its acquisition by Discount Tire

Energy and Energy Transition

American Water Works Company, Inc. in its $1.275 billion sale of its Homeowner Services Group to funds advised by Apax

Aegion Corporation in its $963 million sale to an affiliate of New Mountain Capital, L.L.C.

General Electric in the combination of the GE Oil & Gas Business with Baker Hughes, Inc. to create a $32 billion oilfield provider

Volta, an industry-leading electric vehicle charging and media company, in an agreement to be acquired by Shell USA, for $169 million

 

Financial Services

Société Générale, a leading European bank, on its plan to form a joint venture with AllianceBernstein, a leading global investment management and research firm, through the combination of their respective cash equity and equity research businesses

 

Regularly advises individual executives of public companies and private enterprises on employment, severance and retention issues, including:

Jim Bell, in his separation as CFO of GameStop

The management team of Wolt in its acquisition by Doordash

Pina Albo, CEO of Hamilton Group

Fred Knechtel, CFO of Genewiz, Inc.

Leo Melamed, Chairman Emeritus of Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Balan Nair, CEO of Liberty Latin America

The Management Team of MeetUp, Inc. (now a subsidiary of WeWork)

The executive team of Talen Energy in its acquisition by Riverstone Holdings

The management team of MoPub Inc. in its separation from Twitter, Inc.

David Karp, the founder and CEO of tumblr, with his employment, retention and tax arrangements in connection with its sale to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion

Carole Hochman as the CEO of Naked Brand Group

Eileen O'Neill in the negotiation of her employment agreement in connection with her promotion to the position of Global Group President, Discovery Studios

The management team of Ebates Inc. in the negotiation of a retention plan, employment agreements, and the departure arrangements for the CFO, in connection with Ebates $1 billion acquisition by Rakuten, Inc.

Victor Luis, the CEO of Coach, Inc.

Andy Main, the CEO of Bakkt

Leadership Positions And Professional Affiliations

  • Member, Advisory Board, Women in Law Empowerment Forum
  • Member, Advisory Board (and two-term board member), Lawyers Alliance for New York (pro bono)
  • Fellow, American College of Governance Counsel
  • Vice Chair, Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation Committee of the ABA Section of Real Property, Trusts and Estate Law
  • Member, Law360 Editorial Advisory Board for Benefits, 2022 - 2023
  • David Rockefeller Fellow, Partnership for New York City, 2019 - 2022

Recognition

Doreen is a great project lead and team manager. She sets the strategy and tone.
Chambers USA Guide, 2024, Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation
She is very responsive providing an excellent work product. I have nothing but great things to say about her.
Chambers USA Guide, 2024, Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation

Awards

  • Outstanding Achievement Award, International Financial Law Review (IFLR) Women in Business Law Awards (2024)
  • Recognized as "Corporate Governance Lawyer of the Year", IFLR, Women in Business Law Awards (2023)
  • Lifetime Achievement Award, Women, Influence and Power in Law Awards (2023)
  • Her Compensation, Governance and ERISA team was awarded Benefits Team of the Year by Law360 (2020)
  • Winner of Euromoney Americas Women in Business Law Award for Best in Corporate Governance (2018)
  • Included in Euromoney's Women in Business Law guide for Corporate Governance (2019, 2020)
  • Included in the "Notable Women in Law" list for Corporate Governance by Crain's New York Business (2019)
  • Winner of the Chambers Women in Law Award for Leadership in the Community (2015)
  • For the past twenty-one years, Doreen has spearheaded the publication of the Shearman & Sterling survey of the compensation-related corporate governance practices of the largest 100 domestic issuers

Qualifications

Admissions

New York

California (inactive)

Academic

Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude

Managing Editor, Cardozo Law Review

New York University, B.A. in Psychology with honors

Disclaimer
A&O Shearman was formed on May 1, 2024 by the combination of Shearman & Sterling LLP and Allen & Overy LLP and their respective affiliates (the legacy firms). Any matters referred to above may include matters undertaken by one or more of the legacy firms rather than A&O Shearman.