International law firm Dechert LLP announced today that Wall Street veteran, Vivian Maese, has joined the firm’s Intellectual Property Group as a partner in New York, and will be responsible for leading the global Outsourcing and Offshoring (O&O) practice. Maese joins Dechert directly from her role as the global head of Morgan Stanley’s Workforce Strategy and Solutions team.
“Vivian is an industry leader in outsourcing and offshoring. There is no lawyer better able to help us grow this practice, which is of strategic importance to our clients, particularly those in the financial services sector,” said Dechert CEO Daniel O’Donnell.
Maese has wide ranging and global experience with transformative and strategic outsourcing transactions, bank and securities regulatory compliance issues, sourcing, vendor management, privacy, foreign corrupt practices, information security, disaster recovery and country risk concerns.
“An outsourcing or offshoring transaction is complicated and draws on many legal disciplines and legal systems. Dechert has the exceptional talent and the global reach required to handle these transactions,” Maese said. “The firm is client focused, commercial, forward thinking and exceptionally well managed. It has the perfect platform for a successful O&O practice. I am delighted to join the team.”
Maese will lead a group that provides a full range of transactional and regulatory advisory services, including helping clients set strategic objectives and establish key alliances; negotiating, drafting and implementing O&O transactions; and providing regulatory compliance advice.
Maese began her career as a lawyer at Salomon Brothers Inc. where she was one of the first lawyers on Wall Street to cover technology, intellectual property and outsourcing transactions. Through a series of mergers, Salomon Brothers became Citigroup, where Maese earned increasing levels of responsibility, ultimately becoming Managing Director and Deputy General Counsel for Citigroup, and General Counsel of the Global Transaction Services unit of the bank which generates $4 billion in revenues and operates in more than 100 countries.
Following Citigroup, Maese was Senior Vice President at NYSE/Euronext where she worked with the CEO and the Specialist Community on rulemaking related to modernizing the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) at a critical time in the history of the company. After NYSE/Euronext, she accepted the opportunity to become General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of BIDS Trading LP, a broker/dealer operating as an Alternative Trading System regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and backed by Morgan Stanley, the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Knight Capital Group, Lehman Brothers, NYSE/Euronext and UBS.
In her role at Morgan Stanley, she managed a strategic team and had responsibility for Morgan Stanley’s offshore centers in Europe and Asia. A graduate of Hunter College and Brooklyn Law School, Maese is a member of the New York Bar.
