Atlanta's corporate legal world is gathering at the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta hotel on September 16 to argue that the general counsel's job has fundamentally changed — from reactive legal watchdog to embedded business strategist sitting at the executive table. The GC Forum, titled “Leading Through Change — The New Case for the Embedded GC,” will bring together in-house legal chiefs from companies including Equifax, Invesco and Pinnacle Financial Partners alongside two Atlanta siblings whose family has shaped the city's legal and civic landscape for decades.
The event is sponsored by law firm Taft and organized in partnership with the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Georgia Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, according to the Chronicle's report on the forum. Taft senior partner Lauren Prevost, quoted in that report, said strategic businesses are taking a more proactive approach, giving their top in-house legal advisor a seat at the table in shaping organizational direction. Prevost joined Taft after the firm completed a merger with Atlanta-based Morris, Manning & Martin on December 31, 2025 — a combination that, per Taft Law, gave the firm more than 100 lawyers in Atlanta and pushed it into the ranks of the Am Law 100 with over 1,250 attorneys nationwide. Morris Manning managing partner Simon Malko also joined Taft in that merger and, according to the Chronicle, said general counsel is on the front line of change management.
Why the Push to Embed Legal in Strategy
The forum's thesis is backed by fresh survey data cited in the Chronicle's coverage: per the 2026 CLO survey, 84% of chief legal officers now report directly to the CEO, and 79% of respondents almost always attend board meetings. Survey respondents described their work as proactive strategic counsel rather than reactive gatekeeping, the same coverage notes, while the Association of Corporate Counsel found that 34% of organizations now use the chief legal officer title for their top in-house legal position.
Separately, KPMG's 2026 Global General Counsel Outlook survey of 468 senior legal leaders across 28 jurisdictions found that 75% of general counsel are regularly asked by enterprise leadership to advise on non-legal business issues, with 23% saying they're constantly expected to do so, according to Global Legal Post. That same KPMG study found 92% of general counsel regularly interact with company boards. Per the Chronicle's report on the forum, the 2026 KPMG outlook also reported that only 23% of general counsel are truly embedded in business decision-making, and that embedded GCs deliver measurably better organizational outcomes, per the KPMG study. A separate global survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel, reported by Attorney at Work, found that 59% of chief legal officers want their internal legal staff to develop greater business acumen to better align with corporate leadership expectations.
Siblings Bring Family Legacy to the Keynote Stage
The forum will open with a keynote featuring siblings Paige Alexander and Kent Alexander, in a session titled “Family Business: A Conversation on Leadership, Law and Legacy.” Paige Alexander is CEO of The Carter Center, a role she took on in June 2020, and according to the Chronicle's report, she led the Atlanta-based nonprofit through the pandemic and a period of national social upheaval, drawing on more than two decades of global development work. As SaportaReport detailed in 2020, Alexander became the first female CEO of The Carter Center, guiding it through a transition from a founder-led organization following the retirement of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, an institution established in 1982 to advance human rights and public health.
Her brother, Kent Alexander, chairs the board of directors for The Task Force for Global Health, a Decatur-based nonprofit that works with partners in 150 countries, according to the Chronicle. The organization was founded in 1984 by former CDC Director Dr. William Foege and originally operated as The Task Force for Child Survival, per the group's own history. Kent Alexander is the former general counsel for Emory University and CARE USA, was a partner at King & Spalding, and served as a presidentially appointed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, according to the Chronicle's report. The siblings' roots in Atlanta's legal and civic life run deep: their parents, attorney Miles Alexander and political activist Elaine Alexander, moved to the city in 1958 and became prominent civic leaders who helped unite Black and Jewish communities during the civil rights movement, SaportaReport reported. Miles Alexander was a longtime partner at Kilpatrick Townsend, while Elaine was an influential local political activist, per the same account.
Three Panels, One Argument for the Boardroom Seat
Beyond the keynote, the forum will include three panel discussions built around the embedded-GC thesis. The first, titled “How GCs Can Lead — and Survive — Transformational Change,” will examine general counsel involvement from pre-deal strategy through post-merger integration, according to the Chronicle. The second panel, “Beyond the Algorithm: How AI Is Redefining the GC's Role as a Strategic Business Partner,” will look at embedding artificial intelligence into business decision-making and legal work — a focus that tracks with KPMG's finding that 51% of general counsel view understanding and implementing AI as their top operational priority over the next three years, with 70% already deploying it in legal research and analysis, per KPMG.
The third panel, “The Embedded Advantage: What CEOs Actually Want From Their GC — and How Few Are Getting It,” will feature Equifax Chief Legal Officer Julia Houston, Invesco senior managing director and general counsel Jeff Kupor, and Pinnacle Financial Partners Chief Legal Officer Allan Kamensky, per the Chronicle's report. Houston previously served as Equifax's Chief Transformation Officer, managing the company's response and settlement strategy after its 2017 cybersecurity breach, a crisis that led Equifax to invest $1.5 billion into technology and risk management overhauls, according to Equifax. She was appointed board chair of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta in March 2026, per the foundation's own announcement.
Additional panelists named in the Chronicle's coverage include Jamestown managing director and general counsel Amber Murray, YKK senior vice president, general counsel and secretary Key Wynn, PRGX Global president and CEO Jonathan Lerner, Alloy CEO Raj Choudhury, and Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Katie Kirkpatrick. Atlanta legal leaders previously discussed these same trends at a private dinner hosted with Taft, the Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Georgia Chapter of the ACC, according to the Chronicle's report. The Georgia ACC chapter, which is co-hosting the forum, serves a statewide network of more than 1,200 in-house counsel members, per the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Registration for the GC Forum is open, according to the Chronicle. The summit will be held at the InterContinental Buckhead Atlanta, a 22-story, 422-room luxury hotel in Buckhead's financial district that completed a comprehensive, multi-million-dollar property transformation in October 2022, per ConventionSouth. Paige Alexander, Kent Alexander and the panelists are expected to offer practical strategies for in-house legal leaders navigating the shift from courtroom gatekeeper to boardroom strategist, the Chronicle reports.
