Finalist: Bernadette Michelle Chala

Chief Legal Officer
Arbonne
UCLA School of Law

Bernadette Chala started her career as a judicial law clerk, moving to private practice, and then began her career as general counsel to help steer her company through a strategic transaction. Upon successfully closing the transaction, she moved to Arbonne International where she became the chief legal officer and once again steered her company through a successful transaction.

Currently, Chala leads the legal, compliance, government relations and policy, and scientific affairs teams at Arbonne. She successfully converted Arbonne to a for-profit public benefit company and was part of a team that obtained B Corp recertification in 2023 - achieving one of the highest scores of any company in Arbonne’s industry at 119 points. Believing that every team can do its part to support Arbonne’s B-company philosophy, Chala spearheaded a project to ensure that all legal vendors demonstrated a commitment to DEI.