Name: Julia Hanft
Title: General Counsel
Company: Wego Chemical Group LP
Location: Great Neck, NY
6:20 am
The dreaded alarm goes off telling me it’s time to go for a run. I am NOT a morning person, but my best friend, who lives in Chicago, runs at the same time every morning and we get to chat on the phone while we run/walk. She does more of the chatting since I’m usually huffing and puffing. 😊
7:45 am
Mad rush around the house to finish getting ready for work, because I’m supposed to be out the door at 7:45 am, but I still have to find my work phone, pack my lunch, and figure out where I put comfy work shoes. Today is a Friday, so traffic will be lighter, which is a good thing because I don’t get out the door till 8:00 am.
8:30 am
Arrive at the office. Get stopped on the way in by our CEO who has a couple of quick questions about today’s executive committee meeting. Head upstairs to my office and pull out my daily 3x5 card. Every year I buy pre-dated 3x5 cards – one for each day – and use that as my “must do” list, trying to never put more than three things on a day. Only one thing on today’s card, but I have to carry-over two tasks from yesterday that got pushed aside for more urgent items. Still only three, so I’m doing OK.
8:45 am
Review comments from our contracts administrator on some RFP terms and conditions. Make edits to his comments and forward on to the business team so they can include in their proposal. Sign a couple of NDAs and send them out.
9:30 am
ExCo meeting. This is my favorite meeting of the week, because we talk about such a wide variety of topics and it’s my chance to really help the owners take the company where they want it to go.
11:00 am
Rush to end the ExCo meeting because we all have to get to a LATAM business review meeting. Get a good update from our LATAM director on his long-term strategy.
12:00 pm
Attend a kickoff meeting for setting up a new foreign subsidiary. Find out that the new country has a lot of specific requirements for directors and officers, including some officers that have to be residents and citizens of the foreign country. That wasn’t our plan and will be inconsistent with other subsidiary structures. Add this as an agenda item for next week’s ExCo meeting.
12:30 pm
Finally get some time for lunch; today is leftover pasta and a little vegetable crudite with hummus. Since taking this job about 18 months ago, I’ve made a steadfast rule that I will take time out to eat my lunch away from my computer and, more importantly, away from work. I play a little candy crush on my phone while eating.
1:00 pm
Back to the grind; I start going through emails, focusing on the ones that can be filed or deleted. Once I’ve whittled it down, I switch to the emails on litigation matters, discovering a new email from one of our foreign legal counsels. A document needs an apostille; painful process and of course they need it ASAP. There goes the plan for this afternoon.
2:00 pm
Virtual meeting with our contract administrator, a full-time remote employee. We review the changes he made to an NDA and a recruiter agreement; I explain we’ll accept Ohio law this time because the opportunity is competitive, so we want to be a little more flexible than usual. We also review current anti-dumping cases in Europe and update our running chart with latest status.
2:30 pm
No one in the office could go to the county clerk to start the apostille process, so I leave the office and head over there myself. Get the notary authentication and drop the document in a FedEx box off to our apostille runner in New York city. They’ll get the apostille on Monday and send the document off to our foreign counsel.
3:30 pm
Join a call with logistics, customer service, and sales teams to discuss the process for delivery on a DAP basis for a customer who is switching to become the importer of record. I’m driving back from the county clerk office, so only joining on audio and not able to see any of the documents being shared. Add a reminder to my phone to check the shared folder as soon as I’m back in front of a computer.
4:30 pm
Finally made it home from the county clerk office. School is back in session, so Friday traffic shouldn’t be this bad, but it was. My phone goes off reminding me to check that shared folder, so I do that first before I forget about it. The team did a great job; the process documents are clear and seem to cover everything.
5:00 pm
Go through the rest of the emails from today. Check back on my 3x5 card and confirm none of my three items have been accomplished. Decide to take care of at least one of them before signing off for the day. The other two will have to be weekend items.
6:00 pm
Turn off the computer and start straightening up the house. Our cleaning lady comes tomorrow, and I have learned the hard way anything I don’t put away will get put away somewhere it doesn’t belong and it will take me another week to find. It’s good encouragement to straighten up before she arrives. LoL
11:00 pm
Check emails one more time before heading to bed. Luckily nothing urgent has come in since signing off earlier. Check my personal calendar and realize I have an early chiropractor appointment tomorrow. That’s a good excuse not to run, so I turn the alarm off and give myself permission to skip tomorrow’s run. The plan is to sleep in – all the way to 7:30 am. Sometimes I really miss those days when I could sleep till noon. 😊
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