About
Lawyer, operator, founder, and builder.
Heather has spent her career helping companies become more prepared for what they are becoming.
Building rather than merely maintaining.
That work has taken different forms: building an in-house legal function, advising leadership teams, developing risk frameworks, preparing a company for acquisition, and navigating post-merger integration.
Across those experiences, the constant has been a belief that legal leadership works best when it is closely connected to the business.
Growth-stage environments reward useful questions, proportionate judgment, and the ability to bring structure to uncertainty. Operating responsibility also makes clear that legal, financial, operational, product, and brand considerations rarely arrive one at a time.
Operating experience
Built through growth and change.
As the first in-house General Counsel at Simple Mills, Heather built and scaled the company's legal function through private-equity-backed growth, its 2025 acquisition by Flowers Foods, and post-merger integration.
Today, she leads Cultivate Counsel, providing fractional General Counsel support to growth-stage companies with an emphasis on emerging CPG brands.
Her current work also includes mentoring and investing with SKU and participating in The Angel Group's CPG investment network.
Professional record
The experience behind the practice.
- Current title
- Founder & Principal, Cultivate Counsel, Inc.
- Current practice
- Fractional General Counsel for growth-stage companies, with an emphasis on emerging CPG brands
- Law school
- Boston College Law School, JD, cum laude, Order of the Coif
- Undergraduate
- Northwestern University, BA, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
- Location
- Greater Chicago Area
- Bar admissions
- Illinois (2006) · New York (2019)
- Angel network
- Member, The Angel Group
- CPG accelerator
- Mentor & Investor, SKU