Danielle Sheer has a title you don't see often: Chief Trust Officer. She is also the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Commvault, the global leader in data protection and cyber resilience. Outside of her work at Commvault, Danielle is a board member of Manhattan Associates, a public supply chain technology company, and a trustee advisory board member of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
“What I liked about the Chief Trust Officer title was that it enabled the portfolio under a General Counsel to grow outside of just legal, including compliance, security, and other areas of the business that naturally tap into skills that lawyers develop over time,” said Danielle.
GC AI founder Cecilia Ziniti has known Danielle since she heard her speak at a TechGC event 15 years ago and was immediately struck by her unique way of thinking about legal. In this conversation, CZ and Danielle discuss what happens when a GC stops leading with their legal lens, and how Danielle built an entire philosophy around what it means to focus more on being trusted than being right.
"Instead of leading with the legal analysis, I lead with the business goal,” said Danielle. “What are we trying to accomplish? Legal then becomes an input into that. But there are so many other inputs, and it’s my job to assess risks, regulations, and speed to success.”
How a Chief Trust Officer Changes the Company Culture
Danielle first encountered the Chief Trust Officer title in an article about Adobe's general counsel around 15 years ago. Two things struck her immediately. The first was how much of the business could fit under the “trust” vertical. The “Chief Trust Officer” title created space for Legal’s portfolio to expand in a way that General Counsel never quite did.
The second thing she liked about the title was more personal. Early in her career, Danielle ran what she describes as a “campaign to change how the world felt about lawyers.” It didn’t go well.
"When a lawyer enters a room, a lot of people kind of clench up,” she said. “It adds a layer of stress into the energy of a place. I was able to change how the people in my immediate vicinity felt about me. I was able to build trust. But I lost the broader campaign."
The new title gave Danielle a way to turn that perception on its head. “Chief Trust Officer” signals something different from “General Counsel” from the moment you walk in the door. A security incident managed by the Chief Trust Officer lands differently than one communicated by the GC. The role may be the same, but how you’re perceived is not.
Danielle’s role now spans legal, compliance, cybersecurity, M&A, and business development. Along the way, she’s developed a leadership philosophy based around the question she asks in every crisis and every kickoff meeting: who do we want to be on the other side of this?
Note from CZ: I learned this lesson the hard way as a CEO. I added my lawyer to a supplier dispute thinking it would strengthen my position, and it immediately escalated in a way I hadn't intended. Danielle's reframe helps set expectations that the in-house lawyer is not the enemy.
Modern GCs Should Build Trust During Times of Crisis
When a key leader in the company resigns, HR is thinking about the exit process and the backfill. Legal is thinking about getting signatures on non-competes and non-solicits. The departing executive's peers are thinking about how that person’s team will function in the leader’s absence.
Almost nobody, Danielle says, is asking how the organization will be affected by the chaos.
"Almost every crisis or goal that we want to achieve, I'm thinking: who do we want to be on the other side of this?” asks Danielle. “How do we get there by strengthening trust and not by breaking trust with each other, with our employees, with our customers, with our board?"
As Chief Trust Officer, Danielle’s job is to keep the end destination in mind while everyone else is managing their immediate function. Do we have an internal candidate to fill the role? Should we interview externally? What skill set do we need now versus what we had? How do we make sure this person leaves on great terms with the company?
All of these legal questions are inputs, says Danielle, but your intended destination is the output. Someone must own the destination to get where you want to go.
Note from CZ: The long game framing here connects directly to what Ben Jacobs said about one-way doors in M&A and what Jordan Breslow shared about building trust long before you need it. The legal leaders who have the most impact are the ones playing the long game.
A Legal Leader’s Secret Weapon: Translation and Application
Danielle’s prediction for the future of the legal field is fairly blunt: the days of paywalled legal advice is over. The average consumer has had to pay for legal advice for as long as the profession has existed. You had to know a lawyer, pay a lawyer, and then wait for a lawyer to call you back. The internet, and now AI, have made that multi-step process a relic.
Rather than being a threat to the profession, Danielle says this shift will clarify the real value of lawyers, especially in-house lawyers .
"Nobody can read these regulations, not even the people who write them,” jokes Danielle. “You have to understand them and then translate them to get to the point. And the point will be different depending on who you're talking to."
For example what a regulation requires of a consumer-facing product is different from what it requires of an internal workflow. The legal answer may be the same, but translation isn't. A good in-house lawyer can tell you how the law applies to a specific situation.
Danielle believes that the attorneys who thrive in this new environment will be the ones who use AI to get to the answer faster and spend the time they save on the thing no tool can replicate: showing up with the right framing, for the right person, at the right moment.
"Anybody can GC AI a question and get a legal answer,” she said. “I don't need to wait for my lawyer to call me back. How I apply that to this business and these people will be the secret sauce."
From AI Skeptic to Cautious Optimist
When AI first became mainstream, Danielle was a major skeptic. Her objection wasn’t to the technology, it was to the question companies were asking about it: How are we going to use more AI? How are we going to sell AI? How are we going to be left behind if we don't use AI?
“It was like nails on a chalkboard to me,” Danielle said. “My personality does not get on the hype cycle bandwagon and I am immediately suspicious of it. I needed to work out why. AI is a great tool. It frees up time for humans to figure out how to be effective.”
Danielle says the question companies should be asking is: what problem are we solving and how does AI help us solve it?
What moved Danielle from skeptic to happy legal AI user was sitting with people she trusted, like GC AI founder CZ, and learning how the tool would help her move the needle forward in her daily work.
“What I love about GC AI is that it helps me overcome a blank page,” Danielle said. “It gives me sort of a heads up on what the customer perspective could be when I am so rooted in my own way of thinking.”
Prior to trying GC AI, Danielle was a ChatGPT user who wished there was a version of the app built for lawyers. Turns out, there was.
“GC AI was built for the legal and compliance world,” said Danielle. “It’s great because it gives me the tone, the tenor, the reliability, and the credibility of an LLM that was created by and for lawyers.”
Danielle found that GC AI gave her more time for the work that actually requires a human brain, and more space to ask the harder questions, think through the counterarguments, and show up prepared. If you want to be the kind of in-house lawyer who shows up to every conversation prepared, start your free GC AI trial today.
