Kerry E. Berchem is a highly regarded executive leader and accomplished corporate advisor. As a senior partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Ms. Berchem provides legal, crisis management and business counsel to public and private companies, boards of directors and C-suite executives across multiple regulated and unregulated industries, including industrial, distribution, manufacturing, retail and (re)insurance. She has extensive experience advising boards of directors, special committees and C-suites on public, private and distressed M&A, IPO and capital markets financings, and bespoke special situations transactions and has served as outside general counsel to more than 50 post-restructured companies on a broad array of matters, including corporate governance, shareholder activism and takeover defense, strategic planning, executive transitions, environmental, social and governance (ESG), investor relations and disclosure, internal investigations and financial restatements.

Ms. Berchem is nationally recognized in the areas of M&A, corporate governance and shareholder activism and takeover defense, including recognitions from Chambers, M&A (Highly Regarded), Law Dragon, 500 Leading Dealmakers in America, Euromoney, Women in Business Law: Corporate Governance Lawyer of the Year and The Deal, Top Women Deal Makers – Activism.  Further, The New York Law Journal named Ms. Berchem as one of its “Top Women in Law” and a “New York Trailblazer.”

Ms. Berchem served as Member of the Management Committee of Akin, a top 25 global law firm with ~1,000 attorneys and ~$1.5 billion annual revenue, participating in the development, oversight and implementation of the firm’s strategic goals and objectives, budget and asset allocation and risk management issues, Chair of the Audit Committee and Member of the Succession Committee.  Currently, she is co-Chair of Akin’s ESG Group, an inter-disciplinary, cross-office practice that provides customized solutions and risk mitigation strategies to companies and investment funds. For more than a decade, Ms. Berchem served as Chair of Akin’s Corporate Practice, setting strategy, guiding significant expansion in the Firm’s transactional business development, revenue, profitability and brand awareness, and overseeing talent development, retention, advancement and compensation matters.

Ms. Berchem, a Member of the NYC Bar Association M&A Committee and Harvard Law Governance Advisory Committee, regularly writes and speaks about corporate governance and leadership issues. She received her J.D. degree from Tulane University School of Law and her B.A. degree from Yale College, where she was a two-sport college varsity athlete and co-founder of the Epsilon Tau Chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta, the first sorority at Yale. Ms. Berchem continues her involvement with her alma mater as a Yale Alumni Interviewer and Nathan Hale Associates Scholarship Sponsor.