Bio

As a former general counsel of both a public company and a private company, Allen Nelson has significant experience leading global teams, and providing advice on a wide range of topics important to boards of directors, members of executive management, and investors. Mr. Nelson co-leads t|e General Counsel and focuses on leveraging the Firm’s considerable in-house experience to provide tailored solutions to General Counsels, in-house lawyers, entrepreneurs and business owners who want lawyers that can “plug and play” into their businesses. Currently serve as the fractional General Counsel for a private equity owned national retail company, an international family-owned retail company, as early stage EMS company, and other companies in various industries. Mr. Nelson was the General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Administrative Officer of Crawford & Company (NYSE: CRD.A and CRD.B). Crawford is the world’s largest publicly traded claims management firm, which operates in more than 70 countries around the world. Mr. Nelson advised the company’s Board of Directors and senior management on a wide variety of legal and business issues including mergers and acquisitions; ethics and compliance; litigation matters; government investigations and negotiations; and the legal and compliance aspects of Crawford’s status as a NYSE-listed company.. At various times during his tenure, Mr. Nelson was also responsible for internal audit; ethics and compliance; human resources; corporate communications; and real estate. Prior to joining Crawford, Mr. Nelson was BellSouth Corporation’s (NYSE: BLS) Chief Compliance Counsel. He also managed legal matters for the company’s political activities; its risk management function; litigated matters; traditional labor and employment matters; as well as intellectual property issues. Mr. Nelson also supported major transactions, including the acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless. Mr. Nelson was also the General Counsel of 8 Rivers Capital, LLC. 8 Rivers Capital develops sustainable infrastructure. In that role, Mr. Nelson oversaw a portfolio of hundreds of patents globally; worked extensively with inventors on emerging technologies; and protected the company’s proprietary information vigorously.