Kim Rivera
DaVita, Inc.
Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary
Energy, enthusiasm, and excitement—Kim Rivera ranks these qualities high among those she brings to the corporate legal table. “Of course, substantive skills are vital,” explains Rivera, who joined DaVita, a Fortune 500 healthcare provider, last November. “But from what I’ve seen, a high level of engagement makes for a more positive, productive experience for everyone involved.”
Rivera’s workplace passion also makes for a good fit with DaVita—not only a cutting-edge leader in kidney care, but also a company with a well-developed sense of whimsy. Its legal department is known as the Justice League (a witty moniker borrowed from the world of comic books), and each attorney is required to select his or her own superhero alter ego. “I chose Phoenix from X-men,” shares the Los Angeles-based GC. “She is an ‘Omega-level super mutant’ who guides the other X-men on how to channel their powers and use them for good. Equally important to me, her outfit is very demure; at DaVita, we never know when we’ll be ambushed and made to wear our superhero uniform.”
Growing up in Puerto Rico and Paraguay, the respective native countries of her mother and father, Rivera was educated at bilingual schools. When she was still a baby, her father died. Throughout her childhood, she learned valuable life lessons from her mother: “She taught me that my mind was precious, something to be nurtured and protected,” Rivera remembers. “And she instilled in me that it’s vitally important as a woman that I create my own path by pursuing education and career—things that would give me opportunities and choices. My mother planted a seed that stuck with me forever.”
Then, when Rivera was in her early teens, her mother died, and she spent the next few years living with various relatives in Puerto Rico and Paraguay. “My family supported me by not holding me back,” Rivera asserts. “When I packed my bags and flew off to attend Duke [University] in Durham, a lot of jaws dropped, but nobody tried to stop me.”
After Rivera graduated from college, her younger sister joined her in the U.S. and lived with her while she attended Harvard Law School, and for many years after. “In law school, I was immediately drawn to litigation,” Rivera recalls. “While I liked learning, I really loved ‘doing.’ I saw litigation as working with real people on real problems, and was drawn to it immediately. I quickly became involved with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and the Prison Legal-Assistance Program. My first law job was as a litigator at Jones Day.”
The biggest surprise of Rivera’s legal career happened when she went in-house—first at Rockwell Automation, followed by a stint at The Clorox Company. “Sitting with business partners and seeing the real-life application of corporate law to business strategy, I discovered that I loved it. Seeing corporate and business law come to life fascinated and energized me.”
And while serving as a GC is not for the faint of heart, Rivera concedes, her position at DaVita is tremendously satisfying. She is doing all the things she loves—strategizing, managing, lawyering—at a company whose very name means “to give life.” For Rivera, that is both profoundly humbling and a wondrous challenge.
Return to MCCA® 2010 Fortune 500 Women General Counsel Survey
From the July/August 2010 issue of Diversity & Bar®