Jessica Hately
Director, Tax
Jessica serves as a Director with KPMG Law US. She has practiced law for more than 20 years, including 16 years of in-house experience focused on driving commercial growth, operational excellence, and finding creative solutions to address legal, compliance, and operational risks without compromising business goals. Most recently Jessica was Chief Legal Officer for Top Hat, a higher-education technology scale-up company.
Jessica is a seasoned legal executive with extensive experience as Chief Legal Officer at Top Hat, Vice President at GoDaddy, and Senior Corporate Counsel at LifeLock. Her expertise lies in driving strategic commercial goals, leading complex contract negotiations (including SaaS, vendor, and partnership agreements), and managing intellectual property. She has a strong background in corporate transactions, having managed over 20 global acquisitions, including high-value deals for GoDaddy and LifeLock. Jessica also played a key role in major financial transactions, such as GoDaddy's $1.1 billion senior note offering and its 2015 IPO, as well as LifeLock's 2012 IPO.
A key innovator in legal operations, she automated contract workflows at Top Hat, significantly improving efficiency. Her experience also covers corporate governance, SEC compliance, and leadership of high-functioning legal teams. Prior to her in-house roles, she was an associate at Greenberg Traurig and Fennemore Craig.