01
Building for scale
Creating legal infrastructure, teams, governance, processes, and operating systems that can evolve with the company.
Cultivate Counsel, Inc. · Founded by Heather F. Harper
Legal architecture for growth-stage companies.
Fractional General Counsel leadership for growth-stage CPG companies navigating scale, investment, transactions, and organizational change.
A legal function designed for the business
Growth changes what a company needs from its legal leadership.
When a company becomes more complex, legal work needs to become an operating system rather than a collection of isolated answers.
Cultivate Counsel helps leadership teams prioritize what matters now, build what should come next, and connect legal strategy to the direction of the business.
Where Cultivate Counsel creates leverage
Legal judgment for the moments that change a company.
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Preparing for capital
Strengthening documentation, decision-making, compliance, risk frameworks, and diligence readiness before investor scrutiny increases.
- Investment readiness
- Governance and diligence
- Risk frameworks
03
Navigating transformation
Supporting organizations through rapid expansion, leadership change, acquisitions, exits, and post-merger integration.
How the work moves
From business context to operating capability.
Every engagement begins with the company: its growth stage, priorities, resources, stakeholders, and the decisions leadership needs to make.
- 01
Understand the business
The legal function cannot operate in isolation. Good judgment begins with understanding how the company creates value, where it is going, and what leadership is trying to accomplish.
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Prioritize what matters
Not every risk deserves the same response. The work is to distinguish material issues from theoretical ones and act in proportion to the company's goals and stage.
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Build for the next stage
Strong legal leadership solves the immediate issue while building the systems, habits, and organizational capability required for what comes next.
The work now
Working alongside the people building what comes next.
Heather's current work connects legal leadership, founder mentorship, and early-stage investing across the CPG ecosystem.
2026–present
Cultivate Counsel, Inc.
Founder & Principal
Fractional General Counsel support for growth-stage companies, with an emphasis on emerging CPG brands.
2026–present
SKU
Mentor & Investor
Supporting emerging consumer brands through the leading CPG accelerator's intensive mentor program.
2026–present
The Angel Group
Member
Part of a private network of industry professionals and strategic angels investing early in CPG brands.
Operating experience
Built inside the business.
Heather's perspective is shaped by responsibility for implementation, not only recommendation.
Simple Mills
2013to 2025From first trademark and seed financing to first in-house General Counsel and a successful sale.
Building the legal function at Simple Mills
As the first internal General Counsel at Simple Mills, Heather built and scaled the company's legal function through a period of significant growth and organizational change.
Her work supported the company's evolution from a founder-led startup through private-equity-backed growth, acquisition by Flowers Foods in 2025, and complex post-merger legal integration.
The experience required more than technical legal judgment. It required building infrastructure, aligning functions, preparing the organization for scrutiny, supporting executive decision-making, and helping the business navigate change.
Professional recommendations
Clear judgment. Practical execution.
Heather doesn't just advise, she collaborates.
She balances legal risk with practical execution and builds smart processes that drive compliance without slowing the business down.
She translated complex legal issues into clear, actionable guidance.
Across nearly a decade, Heather brought structure to legal operations while protecting the company and enabling growth.
The most important business moments rarely belong to one function.
Cultivate Counsel welcomes conversations with leaders navigating growth, transactions, legal-function buildout, and organizational change.