Riddhi Shah Built Her US Legal Career from Scratch

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Riddhi Shah immigrated to the United States to live out a storybook romance; she married her now husband after years of friendship that began when the two were in preschool. The move’s implications for her legal career, on the other hand, were hardly fairytale material.

“I had to restart my career because my five years of practice in India were pretty much discounted here,” says Shah, who specialized in securities and mergers and acquisitions at one of India’s largest law firms. “I didn’t know a single lawyer when I moved to California. I was so lost, not even knowing where to start.”

With patience, persistence, and a lot of networking, Shah finally found her footing stateside. Her efforts have culminated in a coveted role at Pinterest, the visual search and discovery platform where users find inspiration, curate ideas, and shop. As the company’s director of corporate governance and securities, Shah keeps things running smoothly behind the scenes by getting in front of any challenges she sees on the horizon.

“I truly invest in getting to know my internal clients as people. I genuinely want to know them and their work, and I build a mutual relationship that goes a long way. Today, if I need something urgently from any of my cross-functional partners, one ping is all it takes. I don’t have to wait a day to hear back from them. I hear back in seconds.”

Riddhi Shah

Shah is no stranger to challenges, having faced more than her share to get to where she is today. “Being from outside the US, you’re constantly trying to convince yourself that you’re good enough, in addition to having to convince others that you’re good enough,” she says. “I did a ton of networking—which, as an introvert, wasn’t easy at all. But I learned the skill of networking, and I started forming personal relationships with the people I met.”

One of those connections led to a position at a securities litigation firm, while a later one—with an attorney originally from Brazil—brought Shah into the corporate world at financial software company Intuit. The move in-house gave her a chance to prove her worth and ultimately opened the door to her current role.

“Pinterest had just gone public, and they needed somebody with my skillset,” Shah explains. “It was exactly what I was looking for, because it was a smaller team and there were more responsibilities, which meant more learning opportunities for me.”

Indeed, Shah leads all things securities and corporate governance at Pinterest. “I partner with several cross-functional teams and counsel them on various matters that fall under my expertise,” she says. “One minute I’m practicing securities law, the next I’m taking minutes at a board meeting, and after that I’m advising somebody on how to donate furniture in France.”

To ensure the success of her cross-functional partnerships, Shah took the time early on in her tenure to develop strong relationships throughout the company. “I truly invest in getting to know my internal clients as people. I genuinely want to know them and their work, and I build a mutual relationship that goes a long way,” she says. “Today, if I need something urgently from any of my cross-functional partners, one ping is all it takes. I don’t have to wait a day to hear back from them. I hear back in seconds.”

Those relationships have been essential to Shah as she has encountered new areas—including ones outside the legal realm—during her time at Pinterest. “When the SEC came out with its new cybersecurity rules, before the rules were even final, I was already working with our chief security officer to understand his processes,” she offers as an example. “Cybersecurity was completely unknown to me, so it was about educating myself on that topic while at the same time educating others on the rules.”

“I’ve started mentoring young attorneys, especially immigrant attorneys, and my advice to them is to network, network, network. It’s important to know what you want and how you want your network to help you.”

Riddhi Shah

Staying a step ahead is the name of the game for Shah. “As soon as the SEC releases a proposal, I start getting my act together internally so that when the rule does become final, I know what I’m doing,” she says. “The only piece left then is putting the disclosure together, which is honestly the easier part.”

Easier though the disclosure might be, Shah notes that a tremendous amount of back-end coordination enables its drafting. Likewise, she needed to apply some serious elbow grease to get the company’s newly minted ESG program off the ground. “ESG has been one of my passion projects. When I joined Pinterest, we were sort of still a startup, and we didn’t have an ESG team, program, report, or anything,” she elaborates. “I was one of the initial proponents, and now we have a full-blown ESG team.”

Shah is proud of Pinterest’s progress on ESG, and just as proud of her professional growth since she first arrived in the US. “I’ve started mentoring young attorneys, especially immigrant attorneys, and my advice to them is to network, network, network. It’s important to know what you want and how you want your network to help you,” she says, reflecting on her own experiences. “Be patient, be persistent, and don’t give up.”

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