Finalist: Vanessa Wu

General Counsel
Rippling
UCLA School of Law

Vanessa Wu is general counsel at Rippling, where she oversees legal and compliance. At Rippling, she has been one of the driving forces behind its global expansion, advising on compliance and hiring practices across the United States, Canada, EMEA, and APAC as the company has grown from 100 to nearly 2,000 employees across a dozen countries.

Over the past few years at Rippling, Wu realized that being a multi-national company is no longer just an enterprise-level concern, but also an issue for small- and medium-sized businesses. She has worked closely with product teams to transform these learnings into the development of Rippling’s Global Payroll, Employer of Record, and HRIS products, which allow customers to compliantly hire and manage global workforces without extensive legal, tax, accounting, and HR resources. Previously only available to enterprise companies, this functionality has democratized talent and infrastructure for companies of all sizes.