‘She was ideal to take the position on’: HR professional becomes law firm’s CEO

An HR professional with extensive experience in various fields has recently been named chief executive at a law firm, maintaining a culture that puts people first.

Looking forward to 1 July 2025, law firm Gilchrist Connell will have a new chief executive: Belinda Cohen, who previously acted as the firm’s chief people officer. Cohen will be taking over the top job from founding principal and managing principal Richard Wood, who recently spoke to HR Leader about the upcoming passing of the torch.

Wood shared some insight on how the decision-making process was formulated and why the firm believed that Cohen was the right person for the role.

“We got a consultant involved to take us through the process. At the end of that process, Belinda Cohen was selected to be the chief executive starting on 1 July. Belinda’s been with us for four years as our chief people officer, but like Liam Neeson in Taken, she has a very particular set of skills,” Wood said.

“We didn’t go into that process looking necessarily for the best lawyer or the best internal lawyer to run us. We went in looking for the best person to run us, and Belinda came out of that equation.”

“She has been a private practice lawyer; she’s been an insurance lawyer. So, she’s done the work that we do. She’s also worked in-house at insurers. She was with the TAC in Victoria for a long time. She’s done change management projects in insurers, she’s done management and administration in insurers, and she’s also been an executive coach.

“So, she’s coached lawyers, partners, and chief executives of small companies through to public companies. She has a pretty unique skill set, and she was ideal to take the position on.”

Wood believes that Cohen is the perfect person to maintain and improve the workplace culture that they strongly adhere to, and it directly intertwines with the firm’s business outcomes.

“It was important for the firm to select the best person to take us on the path that we want to go down. We are a people business. All our clients are people businesses, so we’re people dealing with people,” Wood said.

“I’ve always had a view that law firms don’t stay together because they have to. They stay together because they want to, so you have to find common ground, and the culture in our firm is something we are extremely proud of.

“Belinda has a skill set that will enable us to remain agile and to hold each other accountable and be accountable to each other. That’s going to be a great measure of our success. We put our people first. We do that very deliberately.”