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Rosa Amaral Ryan moved to the US when she was ten years old. The current assistant general counsel at Kenvue was the first in her family to graduate college, let alone earn a law degree. Her sophomore year in college, her parents moved back to Portugal, leaving Amaral Ryan in a strange position. Ultimately, she made the decision to stay and earn her JD in the US.
Amaral Ryan had to earn every step. She attended law school at night at Temple University while working as a paralegal during the day. By the time she graduated, she had more experience in the practice than most law school graduates and was uniquely positioned to hit the ground running.
She thrived in Philadelphia, a city that’s been her home since she came to the US. After earning her stripes in the firm world, Amaral Ryan worked at a claims administrator and went on to spend over a decade at both Synthes and Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
A Cross-Cultural Tradition
Every year, Rosa Amaral Ryan prepares a traditional Portuguese Christmas Eve meal for her extended family, which is no simple task. “It’s always a little overwhelming right up to the point when everyone is around the table,” the attorney says. “Then, it’s just amazing.”
That table includes her husband’s family, not Portuguese in the least; Amaral Ryan assumed they were politely tolerating food they wouldn’t normally seek out on their own. Then, last year, her niece chose to write about the annual dinner as her favorite family tradition for a school assignment. “It made me so happy that our meal was the tradition she chose to write about,” Amaral Ryan says. “She’s not Portuguese, but it’s a way to share my culture with the rest of my family.”
In 2023, Kenvue announced its full separation from J&J as a spin-off of its Consumer Healthcare division. The fully independent company boasts brands like Band-Aid, Listerine, and Tylenol, so it wasn’t exactly hurting for market share. But it was also an opportunity for Amaral Ryan to experience something brand new in her career, decades into it.
“This was a challenge, an opportunity to help stand up a new company,” Amaral Ryan explains. “That was part of the reason I decided to make the transition, because you don’t often get the chance to do something like this in your career.”
In many ways, it was like joining a start-up sans the terror of wondering if the next paycheck will clear. Many of the AGC’s colleagues are people she’s known for years, but this time, the goal was much, much different.
“Every step in my career, the groundwork was already set,” Amaral Ryan says. “Kenvue was the chance to create policies, procedures, and, in my case, an approach to litigation in a new company. We could look back at the best practices we were employing and decide if it made sense for this company going forward. It’s been an incredible experience to take from the best but also tweak and evolve to what makes sense for Kenvue.”
The challenge was enough to bring Amaral Ryan into the fold. She understands the confusion over leaving a job she’d come to know and practice well for something unknown. The AGC says it might not be for everyone not wanting to take the chance at this point in their career.
“I think one of the big reasons people resist change isn’t necessarily bad; something is probably working well,” the AGC says. “If it’s working, why change? But for me, I was just too interested in the prospect of building something from scratch. I was open to something new, and I saw a big opportunity for growth. It was an opportunity to keep learning how to do something new and better.”
Litigation is a substantial part of Amaral Ryan’s role, but it’s not the one she places the most value on. That might have something to do with the fact that she’s been an expert litigator for so long that it comes secondhand to her, but as she’s grown into larger in-house roles, providing counsel has become a much more considerable area of focus for the attorney.
“Counseling includes risk mitigation and identification,” Amaral Ryan says. “But it’s also about finding ways around saying no to my business colleagues who are trying to help push the company forward. I’m not going to create any goodwill or partnership if they just know me as the person who is always going to tell them no and not provide any alternatives or new ideas.”
She’s a standout in the legal world. “Rosa is diligent, innovative, and highly effective,” says Steve Zalesin, partner at Patterson Belknap. “She is able to develop and execute creative and strategic legal solutions and is always a pleasure to work with. We value our partnership with her.”
Amaral Ryan says she’s benefitted from mentors who taught her how to be not just a great attorney but a better leader. She’s encountered a variety of leadership styles across her career and has cobbled together her own approach. And she’s also found time to pass along her own expertise.
The AGC has volunteered on behalf of the Philadelphia Bar Association, copresenting for a civics program for a high school in Philadelphia, and at Philadelphia VIP, an organization that connects attorneys with pro bono opportunities. She’s also acted as an interviewer for the judicial intern program at the American Bar Association.
It’s no surprise that Amaral Ryan has found ways to spend time educating the next generation. She even considered going into teaching after earning her undergrad in political science. Her extensive interests reflect how many sides there are to her identity: an immigrant who feels truly at home in the City of Brotherly Love, an AGC who’s helped create an entirely new company out of a historically massive one, and a long-practicing in-house attorney who is still finding ways to challenge herself.
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