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When Jourdan Ball reflects on what drew her to a career in law, she thinks of a family experience that left an indelible impression.
“When I was very young, my grandmother passed away tragically and there was a wrongful death suit related to the incident,” she recalls. “My grandpa didn’t have a ton of money to afford a good attorney and he was fighting against a corporation with deep pockets. He settled for pennies on what he could’ve gotten.”
While her grandfather didn’t get the justice he deserved, Ball decided to pursue law school to help others get a fair shake. After the North Carolina native earned her undergraduate degree in political science, she earned her law degree from North Carolina Central University.
After she passed the bar, she had her eyes on environmental law and was slated to fulfill her public service aspirations at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But when funding for the intended position dried up, the opportunity fell through, and she was forced to reevaluate her legal path. That’s when she received an offer to work in-house at The Fresh Market, an American chain of supermarkets based in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“Nothing is lost when I am lighting others’ candles, it only makes the company and the individual stronger. I’m there the entire time to support and will let them make reasonable mistakes to learn why a certain strategy may not work.”
Jourdan Cabe Ball
The role not only jumpstarted her passions for legal compliance and labor and employment matters, but also opened her eyes to the impact she could make in an industry that had been a part of her journey all along.
“Nearly every paying job I’ve held since sixteen has been in the food industry, and I’ve noticed that there’s something special about the people drawn to food,” she shares. “The professionals in the industry genuinely want to serve people and put them first. There’s a keen interest in making connections through food, focusing on our customers every day—and that’s true in the legal department, too.”
After serving nearly four years at The Fresh Market, Ball brought her passion for the industry to Compass Group USA, where over 300,000 associates serve 13 million meals daily, including 99 of Fortune’s top 100 companies. The leader says that the same thing that attracted her to the company is what scared her the most about it: its complex corporate structure.
The company has prided itself on allowing each of its twenty-seven subsidiaries to shine as their own business. The strategy is a brilliant yet challenging aspect of the company that makes the life of an employment and compliance expert like Ball incredibly complex.
“From a compliance perspective, you have twenty-seven different companies, and they have twenty-seven distinct personalities, twenty-seven different approaches, and twenty-seven strategies on business” says Ball. “It is, more often than not, challenging to homogenize a compliance process, but I thought that if I could be successful here, I could be successful anywhere.”
Today, she serves as senior corporate counsel and manages and supports the company’s employment compliance. Her team’s coverage spans all fifty states plus Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands. In that capacity, her practices cover numerous areas, including wage and hour, pre-employment screening, hiring, talent acquisition, compensation, federal contracting, prevailing wage, immigration, and more.
Ball has also helped streamline its compliance processes, created an internal employment compliance resource, and developed an internal podcast. For Ball, a huge focus has been on coming up with creative ways to support the company’s managers.
“Our managers are busy; their plates are full. My focus is, and always will be, on a single idea—how can we communicate complex legal ideas in a digestible way so that it is understandable, easy to follow, and even easier to maintain,” she says. “My big focuses include effective communications, streamlined processes and automation, and creativity in risk reduction, all while [being] cognizant of a manager’s time and resources. My team does an incredible job at thinking outside the box in those areas.”
As a leader, Ball says she “wants my people to be themselves, whatever that means.” She also wants them to prioritize work/life balance and to “fail within reason.”
“It is, more often than not, challenging to homogenize a compliance process, but I thought that if I could be successful here, I could be successful anywhere.”
Jourdan Cabe Ball
“I like to see my team push themselves. If a junior associate has an opportunity to work on something they’re not familiar with, or there’s an opportunity for them to learn a new subject matter, then I want them to take a stab at it,” she says. “I want to see their thought process and perspective. I want to see them grow. Nothing is lost when I am lighting others’ candles, it only makes the company and the individual stronger. I’m there the entire time to support and will let them make reasonable mistakes to learn why a certain strategy may not work.”
Ball believes 2024 will be a “year of big growth,” both for the company and for herself.
“I’m looking forward to focusing more on the bigger picture as a leader and how we drive compliance from a commercial perspective. Compliance doesn’t have to be a drain on resources, and my goal is to integrate compliance into everything we do. I’m taking more steps every day to have that kind of role, and I’m looking forward to where that leads,” she says.
“Jourdan’s prioritization of collaboration, critical thinking and comprehensive analysis of relevant statutes and law distinguishes her as an exceptional in-house counsel. We have truly enjoyed working with her.”
—Lonnie D. Giamela, Partner
