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Jonathan Cullen spent 18 years at Pfizer, rose to GC of the Year, and helped bring a COVID vaccine to market – then walked away to coach lawyers. Zak Biggs sat down with him to talk impact, intentionality, and the mark a career leaves.

ZB: You reached the pinnacle as an in-house lawyer — and then walked away to start a coaching practice. Why?

JC: At Pfizer I made a few real dents in the universe. But the part I loved most was coaching my people. Watching them get promoted or land roles they loved felt as big as any org-level win. I'd always told people to work with intentionality. Eventually I had to follow my own advice.

Family drove it too. I have two kids and an amazing wife, and changing my career let me be more present. Eventually I couldn't ignore the pull.

ZB: What kind of “dent” are you now able to have at home?

JC: It's the dent I'm proudest of. My son Tristan has Down syndrome, and that changes how you see everything. You measure success against a person's own progress, not anyone else's. His future is a big unknown, and taking control of my own career was a way to bring more certainty into our lives and be a bigger part of his. Right after this chat, I'm driving my daughter to a birthday party. A few years ago, I'd have been on a call instead.

ZB: What's your hill to die on for what makes a great GC?

JC: Seek first to understand. We jump into advising mode too fast. I look for a high return on question—the one that unlocks a level nobody's reached yet, or lets the client arrive at the answer themselves. Do it well and you advise yourself out of a job on the small stuff, which just means you get the bigger questions.

ZB: What’s one piece of advice for in-house lawyers?

JC: Be selfish about your own development. We're in a service industry, so it's often the first thing we defer. I encourage the lawyers I work with to picture themselves on the porch, at the end of their career and think, what experiences do you want to have had? Then work backwards. And decide what kind of dent on the universe you want to have. Not the title. The dent.

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