Honoree: Phillip Louis Spector

General Counsel, CLO
ThirdLove, Inc.
Harvard Law School

Phil Spector was born to a working-class family in Los Angeles and grew up reading every page of the Los Angeles Times. He quickly rose in high school (valedictorian) with a full scholarship to UC Santa Barbara and then onward to Harvard Law School, where he was both the Supreme Court note editor and Harvard Law Review editor. He served eight years as the GC and board member of Intelsat out of Washington D.C., an organization with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. Spector successfully guided the organization to raise billions of dollars and two different sales to private equity.

Spector joined ThirdLove initially to help the company out during a period of rapid breakneck growth, but quickly it was apparent he was needed full-time and very much in an operating role helping to build the company, playing a role that encompasses much more than a typical GC. For much of his tenure at ThirdLove, he concurrently served in the role of helping lead HR and strategy and guiding board members, founders and the CEO on the best path forward for a variety of business decisions - decisions far beyond those typically addressed by a general counsel.

In the past two years, Spector has guided the company in a variety of litigation and employment matters. Being a $100+ million-dollar revenue business, mostly online but with 10 stores across the country all requiring their own unique employment laws and raising $70 million in venture capital (Spector also handles all IR), ThirdLove finds itself in the crosshairs of numerous litigations, employment matters, and investor issues. Currently and interestingly, a high-profile personality is suing ThirdLove for breach of contract despite there never being a “contract” in place with her to be an influencer for the brand. Also, the company has sued one of its main manufacturing partners for millions of dollars and successfully settled after going to federal court. This was a highly complex case that required Spector to carefully maneuver the organization through. The company manufactures massive amounts of product annually, requiring complex contracts with the Chinese which Spector handles.