Paula Boggs
Founder, Boggs Media, LLC; Board Member, Avid, Newport Festivals Foundation, Inc., Seattle Symphony
Paula Boggs is the founder of Boggs Media LLC, a business that manages her music, speaking, and other creative business activities. She is a TEDx speaker, writer, lawyer, Army veteran, and musician. She is also a board member of numerous organizations: Avid Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: AVID), Seattle Symphony, American Bar Foundation, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University national advisory board, YMCA of Greater Seattle life board, Recording Academy’s Pacific Northwest Chapter (governor), and Newport Festivals Foundation Inc. Boggs served as executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary at Starbucks Corp. from 2002 to 2012. In 2009, Nasdaq named her its top general counsel. Her prior professional experience includes serving as vice president of legal at Dell Computer Corp. and as a partner at the law firm of Preston Gates & Ellis LLP. She also had a 14-year career in public service, including as an assistant US attorney and in various capacities as an attorney for the US Army, the US Department of Defense, and the White House Office of the General Counsel. She served eight years as a regular officer in the US Army, earned the US Army Infantry Parachute Badge and a congressional appointment to the US Naval Academy—among America’s first women to do so. Since leaving Starbucks, Boggs have given speeches across the United States and beyond, writes essays and music, and co-produces albums for, and tours extensively with, the Boggs Band. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed her to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities; in 2018, she received the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award; and in 2021, Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, conferred on her an honorary doctor of laws. In the past, she has served on boards for Fender Musical Instruments Corp., KEXP public radio Station (including on the advisory council and as board secretary and co-chair of the capital campaign), the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees (including chair of the audit and insurance and the student life committees and as a member of the executive and academic affairs committees), the Johns Hopkins Legacy Society (as co-chair), the Johns Hopkins capital campaign executive committee, the Santa Fe University of Art and Design business programs advisory board, American Bar Association board of governors and house of delegates, the American Red Cross national board of governors, Sterling Financial Corp. (Nasdaq: STER), the White House Council for Community Solutions, the School of Rock LLC, Premera Blue Cross (including chair of the investment and compensation committees), Pinnacle Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: PNFP), the Seattle Art Museum, the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Georgetown (TX) Economic Development Commission (as chair), the Georgetown (TX) Public Library Foundation, YMCA of Greater Seattle (including as vice chair), the Washington State Equal Justice Coalition (including as vice chair), and Legal Aid for Washington (including as president). Boggs owns several US copyrights and is a voting member and board governor of the Recording Academy’s Pacific Northwest Chapter. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Law. Boggs is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and earned a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Johns