There’s a moment in every profession where the rulebook stops being enough. Where the frameworks you’ve studied, the precedents you’ve memorized, and the templates you’ve relied on can’t prepare you for what’s actually in front of you. Corporate law has reached that moment.
We’re living through a period where legal departments are no longer backstage operators reviewing contracts and filing compliance reports. They’re being pulled into the center of decisions that shape how companies respond to climate mandates, navigate geopolitical fractures, deploy AI systems, and answer to stakeholders who expect more than profit. The general counsel isn’t just protecting the company anymore. She’s helping define what the company stands for.
This edition “Top Women in Corporate Law, 2026” is built around that shift. We’re profiling women who refused to treat corporate law as a support function and instead turned it into a seat of influence. Women who saw that legal expertise without business insight is just risk mitigation, and business strategy without legal grounding is reckless ambition. They’ve built careers by operating at the intersection, where the real decisions get made.
Our cover story features Shirley Fodor, VP General Counsel for EMEA at Tronox Holdings, who embodies this transformation. She works in one of the most scrutinized, regulated industries in the world, where legal missteps don’t just create liability—they dismantle trust, stall operations, and close markets. Shirley doesn’t operate from a defensive playbook. She’s known for bringing commercial clarity into legal decisions and legal precision into commercial strategy, proving that strong counsel isn’t about finding reasons to say no. It’s about finding the right way to say yes.
We also bring you powerful success stories of women who’ve redefined what leadership looks like in corporate law. One left a top-tier law firm partnership to reshape international economic policy at the highest levels. The other combined an engineering degree with legal expertise to dominate technology transactions in ways traditional lawyers couldn’t. Both rejected the idea that impact requires following established paths.
But beyond individual achievements, this edition examines something deeper: the evolution of the general counsel from legal advisor to strategic architect. From someone who reviews decisions to someone who shapes them. We explore how women are pioneering frameworks for AI governance, ESG accountability, and enterprise risk in real time—not because the regulations told them to, but because the business demanded it and no one else could deliver.
Corporate law isn’t what it used to be. It’s no longer a script you follow. It’s a role you write as the world changes around you. The women in this edition didn’t wait for permission to rewrite it. They just started.
And that’s the insight worth paying attention to.
