Les Parrette
Educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Les Parrette is considered one of the best business lawyers of his generation. He began his legal career with leading firms in Boston and Kansas City, rising to senior partner and department leadership roles during his 14-year tenure in private practice. For the next 20 years, Les moved in-house where he served as Chief Legal Officer, General Counsel, Chief Internal Auditor, Corporate Secretary, Compliance Officer, Chief Information Technology Officer, and in other executive capacities for leading industrial companies such as Westinghouse Electric Supply (electrical product distribution), Novelis (aluminum production, recycling and fabrication), and Aquila (power generation, natural gas transport, retail electric and gas distribution, and energy trading). Les also serves as an independent director of Innopec Inc. (a NASDAQ-listed publicly held specialty chemicals manufacturer) and Deputy Vice Chairman of the Board of the Burton Awards for achievement in the legal profession. In making the transition from private practice (where words are king) to an in-house executive (where the language of business, financial performance and process flows are paramount), Les realized the need to alter how he talked about business law and rendered legal advice. In short, legal advice needed to be as easy to understand as it is to use, say, a map of New York City. These are the underpinnings of One Page Thinking, and it has worked in countless professional and business environments since OPT's inception.
