As General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Compliance, Erika Schenk leads WWT's corporate legal strategy and oversees various teams and functions that play a pivotal role in the company's success globally.  

Brought on in 2014 to build WWT's legal and compliance organization from the ground up, Erika's responsibilities have grown broadly to include contracts; environmental, health and safety; environmental, social and governance (ESG); and government affairs. She also leads legal advice and strategy for the company's three sales organizations, which includes global enterprise, service provider and public sector teams. 

An energetic, deliberate leader with a penchant for solving complex challenges, Erika has played a key role in steering WWT through transformational growth — from navigating the complexities of international expansion to supporting an increasingly diversified services portfolio to leading strategic acquisitions. 

Erika sits on WWT's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Employee Resource Group (ERG) advisory councils, and is executive sponsor of LEAD, the women-led ERG within the company. She was the founding executive sponsor for PRIDE, WWT's LGBTQIA+ ERG. 

Her end-to-end understanding of the business has made her an invaluable collaborator WWT client organization can lean on for practical insight related to some of their most pressing business challenges. 

Prior to WWT, Erika served as senior counsel at Boeing. She spent 14 years in private practice at Bryan Cave LLP, where she was partner focused on corporate and commercial transactions, with an emphasis on international transactions.  

Erika earned her law degree at Saint Louis University School of Law, where she graduated first in her class. Prior to law school, she earned her degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia.  

She is also a published author, having written a chapter in Tenacity: The Deconstructing G.R.I.T. Collection, compiled by Jennifer Bardot. 

Erika serves on several philanthropic and community boards. She is an independent trustee and member of the audit committee for The Commerce Funds (a mutual fund company), and board member and secretary for The Fulton School, a private independent Montessori school. She previously served on the board of Forest Park Forever and the Missouri Historical Society. 

Erika and her husband live on an operating farm in Labadie, Mo., with their two children (John, 19, and Ryan, 16), and two dogs. They also keep bees and a few dozen cattle.