Larry D. HUNTER Wins Honors
HUNTER, BARKER
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 7/8/2012 at 21:43:08
Mount Ayr Record News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, July 05, 2012Mount Ayr native earns top honor
Each year Corporate Board Member magazine honors the top general counsels for corporations across the nation as part of a gala dinner in New York City. This year one of the top four honored was Ringgold county's own Larry HUNTER.
HUNTER is executive vice president and general counsel for DIRECTV, a leading provider of digital television entertainment in the United States and Latin America.
HUNTER grew up in Mount Ayr and is married to former Benton resident Rita BARKER. They now live in Redondo Beach, CA, but have a second home in Mount Ayr. Their daughter, Allison, lives in Denver, CO.
As part of the recognition for the top honor, he was featured in an article in Corporate Board Member magazine as well as presented the award at the awards banquet.
Other general counsels honored at the event at the Grand Hyatt in New York City were Bob WEBER of IBM, Mark OHRINGER of Jones Lange & LaSalle and Karen COTTLEOF Adobe.
HUNTER has been general counsel of DIRECTV or its predecessor, Hughes Electronics Corporation, since December 2002. He served as interim chief executive officerfrom June through December 2009 and also led the company's human resources and administration departments from January 2006 to July 2010. He also served as chairman and CEO of DIRECTV Japan Management, Inc.
In writing about the honor, the magazine calls HUNTER a "corporate renaissance man." It noted that HUNTER has been able to survive multiple ownership changes, shareholders like John Maline and Rupert Murdoch, and a complete corporate makeover.
"Control of DIRECTV has changed multiple times over the last 10 years and navigating through those changes could have been disastrous for a different general counsel," said Frederick GREEN, a partner who heads the transactions practice at Weil, Gotshal and Manges.
"Larry's integrity, sharp mind and sensitivity to the interests of all parties has enabled him to continue as a trusted advisor to the board and a key member of the senior management team throughout these regime changes," GREEN continued.
Michael WHITE, chairman and CEO of DIRECTV, calls HUNTER a go-to guy.
"He is more than our senior lawyer," WHITE said. "He is a terrific business partner who understands the law but also has the pragmatic business sense to know where to negotiate or compromise and the integrity to always do the right thing," WHITE said.
When HUNTER joined Hughes Electronics in 1993, it was focused on defense, automotive, engineering and satellite manufacturing. Today it's solely satellite television.
"We divested businesses and effectively became a start-up," said HUNTER, who led the company through its transition to a $7.46 billion revenue provider of digital television entertainment services.
He spent two years in Japan, successfully extracating the company from a bad situation there and headed DIRECTV Latin America come through bankruptcy and reemergence.
"I had no idea how difficult the practice of law would be," HUNTER said about his early years. "The easy part is the law -- being able to apply it to your clients' circumstances is complex."
In terms of the business there's plenty left to do, he acknowledges.
"We're faced with major challenges in this business," he said. "Everybody from Netflix to Google is trying to destroy our business. I want to continue to do my part to make the company successful."
HUNTER is currently a member of the board of directors of Innova, S.de R.L. de C.V. and Game Show Network LLC and served on the board of directors of PanAmSat from 2002 to 2004. From 1998 through 2001 he was also a member of the board of directors of Nippon Avionics Co. Ltd.
After graduating from Mount Ayr Community high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in economics with high honors from the University of Iowa in 1971. He then graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1974. He also has a master's degree in economics from the University of Michigan. He was a Humphrey fellow in law and economics at the University of Michigan from 1974 to 1975.
He began his law career at McGuire, Woods and Battle in 1975, and was an associate with that firm before joining Clark Equipment Company, where he was international counsel. He was a partner at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn for 13 years and an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law school along the way.
He enjoys getting away on adventurous vacations and likes to immerse himself in things like physics and the evolution of quantum mechanics.
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2012
Ringgold Biographies maintained by Tony Mercer.
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