Legacy in Real Time: Inclusive Leadership, Sponsorship, and Mentorship with Brian Ellis
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Brian Ellis learned what leadership looks like long before he had a title. His father modeled it first, and it shaped how he moved through every room. As the former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Danaher Corporation, he built his career on integrity, accountability, and a deep sense of responsibility to those coming behind him. Power, to Brian, is something you use to make space and create access.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula and Brian break down inclusive leadership in practice: showing up for people, offering time and wisdom, and sponsoring talent that deserves a chance. Brian shares how setbacks built resilience, how mentors opened doors, and why he is “a fierce defender of my people.”
At its core, this conversation is about legacy in real time—how every conversation, decision, and act of advocacy shapes the stories others will tell about you. Brian reflects on the influence of his father’s example, the responsibility of leadership, and what it means to measure success not by titles, but by the people you’ve lifted along the way. His story is rooted in character, community, and a legacy built person by person—and still growing.
Chapters
1:11 – How Brian defines personal brand, how he describes himself, and his favorite Maya Angelou quote and hype music
4:26 – How family and the gritty, segregated Chicagoan environment shaped Brian
6:23 – How a coach ruined Brian’s athletic career and changed the course of his trajectory
15:33 – The foundation of Brian’s career success and how he developed his leadership style
22:39 – Impact and importance of mentorship and taking constructive criticism
28:28 – Why Brian uses his platform to champion and lift others up
36:49 – Code-switching as a survival tactic while navigating professional identities
44:12 – The formation and development of Brian’s legacy now and moving forward
48:44 – What’s fun for Brian and his personal brand non-negotiable
53:48 – The magic of Brian’s brand and his candid reflections on work-life balance
Connect With Brian Ellis
Brian Ellis is the former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Danaher Corporation, where he led the company's global legal organization and championed integrity, compliance, and inclusive leadership. After obtaining his JD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he started his legal career as an AUSA in the U.S. Department of Justice, then later moved to the Office of the United States Attorney Department of Justice. He has held senior executive roles, including VP and Chief Legal Counsel at Medtronic, Inc., Associate General Counsel at GE Healthcare, partner at Altheimer & Gray, and Associate at Ungaretti & Harris LLP.
Throughout his career, Brian has built a powerful personal brand grounded in service, authenticity, and purpose. He currently serves on notable boards, being on the Board of Directors at Entergy Corporation and on the Board of Counselors at the Equal Justice Works Foundation.
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Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.
Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to Branding Room Only, the podcast where your personal brand gets a front-row seat. I'm Paula Edgar, and if you're here, it's because you know your brand isn't just about what you do. It's about how people experience you. In each episode, you'll hear stories, strategies, and lessons from leaders and influencers who built their brands and made their mark. And I'll share the tools you need to do the same. Let's go.
Hi, everybody. It's Paula Edgar here with Branding Room Only, and I'm very excited for my conversation today with my guest, Brian Ellis. Let me tell you about him. He is the former Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Danaher Corporation, where he led the company's global legal organization and championed integrity, compliance, and inclusive leadership. He is a board member of the Entergy Corporation and on the Board of Counselors of the Equal Justice Works Foundation.
Throughout his career, he's built a powerful personal brand grounded in service, authenticity, and purpose. You can read his full bio in the show notes, and you should. Brian, welcome to The Branding Room.
Brian Ellis: Morning, Paula.
Paula Edgar: How are you?
Brian Ellis: I'm great.
Paula Edgar: Awesome. All right, let's jump in. So I ask everyone this first question: what does a personal brand mean to you? How would you define it?
Brian Ellis: Well, for me, it's the thing that people, when they say your name, it resonates. Someone says, "I know that." That's exactly who he is. So personal brand is that single thing that people say, “Oh, that's absolutely right. That's exactly who he is.”
Paula Edgar: Okay, well, then tell me what three words or short phrases you would describe yourself with.
Brian Ellis: I'd say fiercely loyal, fiercely defensive of my people. I'd say fiercely faithful.
Paula Edgar: A lot of fierce in there.
Brian Ellis: Yeah, well, gotta be.
Paula Edgar: Do you have a favorite quote or motto?
Brian Ellis: You know, Maya Angelou's statement about people will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel. That has stood with me through the test of time across my career. It's meant everything to me as someone who's been led and someone who's been called to be a leader because that is so important. Sometimes leaders lose sight of the fact that you can say all kinds of things and people can forgive you for misstatements and what have you, because it could be something in a moment. But it's that thing about how you make them feel that is everlasting. That's been true across the span of my career.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day and he said people want to feel fully heard and fairly treated. Good leaders make them feel that way, and they make them feel in their own way valuable. So I love that quote because it reminds me of that piece.
Now, I have seen you in your fun space, so I'm interested to see what this next answer is. What is your hype song? So when they're going to get full Brian Ellis, what song is playing in your head? Or if you're having a bad day, what song do you need to get you back up? It could be the same song or different songs.
Brian Ellis: They are different songs. So I'm a househead from Chicago. For those househeads out there—Let No Man Put Asunder, You Used to Hold Me, Your Body—those get me rolling. A couple others, but you'd have to see the photos from back in ’80–’82 to actually see how I really got down. But if it's something I need to turn around, usually something from Stevie Wonder, that's my go-to.
Paula Edgar: Okay.
Brian Ellis: You know, the ageless, the timeless songs, the brilliant writing, the poetic nature of his words, and the healingness of his words are things that I turn to when I need that real pick-me-up.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, I hear you. Because as you were saying, you didn’t say a song, but As just started playing in my head. I'm like, "Yeah."
Brian Ellis: So my dog knows two things because dogs sleep in our room. When As comes on, that's the first wake-up call.
Paula Edgar: I understand.
Brian Ellis: So he knows when As comes on, that's the one that gets me out of bed. So it's been there for probably 10 years. Crazy.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I love it. Okay, so tell me, where did you grow up and how do you think that shaped you?
Brian Ellis: So I grew up in Chicago, both in the city and in the south suburbs. It shaped me materially because Chicago, as many people know, is a highly segregated city. I was a bit of an enigma, both being an athlete and a scholar, crossing barriers between those communities that were accepting of someone like myself who was a scholar and an athlete, and then having to manage and learning how to code switch very, very early on as a young person.
Then Chicago is a gritty city. I meet people who are not from— I love my New Yorkers. New Yorkers always tell me, “We know you’re from Chicago. You guys just don’t play with everybody.” And it's very true. It's because we're fairly authentic people and we don't really suffer fools. So that shaped my personality from the very beginning. Then, of course, being raised by two incredibly strong Black people, those are the foundation of my beginnings of beliefs and belief system, even though I was in a very difficult environment within the city of Chicago and, of course, in the south suburbs as well. So, very formative for me in my early years.
Paula Edgar: What sport did you play?
Brian Ellis: Well, I played baseball and basketball, but as my wife often asks me, “Why did you quit baseball?” I said, "Because there were no girls out there." Girls weren’t at the baseball park; they were always at the basketball park.
Paula Edgar: Laser focus.
Brian Ellis: My mind was on the wrong stuff very early on. But no, I played basketball.
Paula Edgar: Gotcha. Do you have any siblings?
Brian Ellis: I do. I have an older sister. She hates it when I say older sister because she is a few years older than I am, but she looks younger than I do. She likes to point that out whenever asked.
Paula Edgar: LOL. So tell me about from growing up in Chicago, what was your trajectory through school? Then tell me about your career.
Brian Ellis: Sure. Well, it's interesting because I always thought I was going to have a career in sports. I was a pretty serious athlete, highly recruited coming out of high school. I never thought, unlike a lot of athletes, that I was going to the NBA. Not a chance. First of all, I played with such tremendous athletes. There was a step-change difference between my capability and theirs. It was very evident. I was the guy that got selected to go to the national camps and play against some of the greatest talents. A lot of people I played with or against played in the NBA. There was definitely a step change between them.
Number one, I wanted to give it more and watch cartoons or something else. They were in the gym already at seven in the morning, dunking basketballs. I already knew there was a step change. But then the most formative thing that happened to me—again, going back to the challenges of being in a very segregated city—was I had a coach that ruined my career, all because I was so different than any other Black person he'd ever coached. I represented a complete change and a dynamic that he was unaccepting of. As a result of that, he tanked my college career.
So I literally went from one weekend of having seven visits lined up for the next two weeks to decide where I was going to college to having no one even returning or sending me phone calls or letters until one day I walked into a coach's office. He hands me two bags—literally two bags of letters from colleges—and says, “Good luck.”
Now, this is in March of 1984. I'd never applied to college because I was going through the sports way. So I was forced to regroup, dust myself off, figure it out, and accept a program that I was head and shoulders above playing in. But because I had no place else to go, I had to choose to go to an academic school in Division III because that was the only place that would take an athlete who was also a scholar. [Inaudible]
It taught me very early on that things can happen as a complete blindside. At 18 years of age, my reaction was a lot different. I was angry, disappointed. Then I had schools figure out within a year that it really wasn't me, that there was something else going on. They were all then coming back and saying, “Well, if you now want to try and walk on, we'd take you on.” I was like, "Wait a minute. I was going to come on as a scholarship athlete. Why would I come on as a walk-on?" So I was stubborn. I refused it.
That was my first lesson in “Don’t necessarily block a blessing,” because my career plan was to have a career in sports, whether it was coaching or getting into major college programs and coaching. By shunning that and by not going into a major Division I program, I cut that off. So now I spent the next several years trying to figure out, all right, what's next? “Well, you are smart. So what do you do now?” Then L.A. Law came out.
I didn't have a lawyer in my family. I didn't know any lawyers. I certainly didn't know any Black lawyers. But oh boy, L.A. Law was the one that opened my eyes. I was like, “Well, wait a minute, hold on. They're in L.A. They dress well. Smart. Okay. Check, check, check.”
Now, “they dress well” wasn’t it because I was the grandma’s kid growing up. Mama made all my clothes. That’s a whole other therapy session. But I saw that, and I saw the power of what they were doing in a courtroom, and I saw that as my first vision. “Okay, well, maybe that's something I could actually do.”
So literally, I come upon graduation—actually, I’d gone overseas. I played ball overseas in Europe, and I came back because I met this girl who then, you know, 34 years later, happens to be my wife, or actually nine years later, happens to be my wife. I said, "Well, I can’t stay playing ball in Europe. I gotta come back because I don’t know what’s going on at Northwestern and what these cats might or may not be doing while I’m away."
I came back from overseas. But then I was stuck. I didn’t really have a plan. “Oh, you have to take this thing called an LSAT? You just don’t roll up in the law school?” Oh, I took an LSAT. Well, there you go. So as it turned out, I mean, playing ball in Europe was great. But there was this girl. I had to make sure that the other guys at Northwestern weren’t trying to get on my territory. I literally came back, stalked her, and 39 years later, all is good.
But it was also instructive of my career so that I looked at that opportunity as one to come back and reground. Went to law school, and I really had no idea what I was going to do. Because again, I didn’t know lawyers, hadn’t met any lawyers, none of them were in my family. So I didn’t actually know what lawyers actually did.
My first year of law school, I forgot that I was supposed to be in law school. All the guys that I knew playing at Illinois at the time were guys that I played against or played with. So I was scrimmaging with those guys and hanging out with my professors. A few of them are long gone by now, but there’s a reason why I wasn’t in class.
But it really opened my eyes a little bit later when I worked for a civil rights lawyer down in Champaign. I started thinking about all the things that I’d seen on TV about lawyers. I see this amazing guy who’s a selfless human being out here in civil rights. I said, “Oh, maybe there’s something I want to do.”
But again, I didn’t know about the practice of law. So I got lucky coming out because I landed with a firm that was tremendous. It was a small aviation aerospace litigation shop in Chicago that had all these partners from major law firms who had gotten together and started a firm.
As fate would have it, I got into that shop, and I started to learn the craft of litigation. And I got good at it. So I started trying cases very young in my career. Then after a number of iterations of firm blowups and separations and fights, I got picked to go along with some majority group every time.
Finally, I get into this mid-year associate level. I had a lot of activity within the firm. I was leading the summer program. The main partner of the firm comes to me and says, “You’re wasting your time here.” That’s a heck of a way to get fired.
I was like, what? In fact, he took me to a supper club in Chicago. If you’re from Chicago, certainly a Black person in Chicago, you don’t even know what a supper club is. So I was like, I show up, I asked my dad what a supper club was. He said, “Well, the guys who’ll be serving, you’re going to look to see if you have a white jacket because they’ve never seen brothers walk into the place like that.”
I walk in, and literally the brothers look at me like, “Why are you here?” I sat there at the dinner and I think to myself, “Well, this is a way to get fired. It’s a great way to get fired. Very public. So I can’t go off.”
He just says, “Look, you can make partner here at the firm, no problem at all. But that’s not really what’s going to make the change in your career.” This is a guy who was looking after me. He said, “Be in my office tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM. The U.S. attorney from the Northern District will be sitting here waiting. I’ve been telling him he needs to meet you.”
Paula Edgar: Oh, wow.
Brian Ellis: I showed up the next morning, and sitting in his office was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Having coffee with him and discussing whether I should or would want to come to the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago.
These are the doors that opened for me just out of happenstance. But it just happened, and I followed, and I understood what was going on. I followed the lead. So because of that, that really changed the trajectory of my career. I got to meet great mentors like Judge Ann Claire Williams, who looked after me, tutored me, and mentored me along the way.
I met great lawyers like Andy Zopp, who were out there as well. Judge Holmes, Scott—these were just amazing sisters in Chicago who were trailblazers ahead of us. I got to be a part of that crew and learn my craft from the U.S. attorney’s office.
I moved into bigger firm life, partnerships, and big firms. But there was always something missing. It was always that same challenge of being recognized for what you do and do well, and being fairly compensated for what you do. I just got sick of the goalposts moving. Bringing in all this money, but yeah, you’re not making top dollar. Keeping all the associates busy, but yeah, you’re not collecting enough on your hours. Changing the rules of engagement along the way as brothers, starting to make it happen.
So I luckily got a call out of nowhere to go to GE. I literally went to GE after that. From there, I just started moving into bigger and bigger roles, ultimately to where I am today.
Paula Edgar: Wow. So I like to draw out some themes when folks are talking about their trajectories. It seems like the people who are focused and are like, “This is what I’m going to do. This is my path. This is going to be a straight line,” don’t exist.
Brian Ellis: Yeah. I can tell you it’s not a straight line for me. In law school, I thought I was going to be a lawyer of the people. I joined a prison rights organization. I wanted to free my brothers who were wrongly incarcerated. Didn’t happen. I became a federal prosecutor.
I mean, right. But I didn’t have a plan. But the thing I did have—and this is why I tell a lot of my mentees—I just stayed open to opportunity. When people told me, and this is a classic line, “I see a lot of you in me,” These are white cats. “How could you see anything?”
But what they were saying to me was part of the reason why I’m successful is because I always remained open and available for opportunity. “I see you are the same.” I think that’s what they were saying to me then. When they gave me the opportunity, I didn’t sit back and go, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t,” or “Maybe I don’t want to.” I did it. I took it.
Because of that, I think part of my commercial brand was I was always that guy. I was always an associate that if you walked that firm—and I know this is new news for the newbies out there; this is old school—I didn’t leave the firm until I knew every partner I worked with was gone. You were not going to catch me dead bouncing before somebody I had work to do for had left.
So I was like, gosh, random partners would walk the halls, and they would say, “Hey, I was looking for somebody to do this. Do you have time?” I was that guy. Because of those things, I think ultimately that linear path—first of all, I didn’t know what a path was—but I never stayed linear because I didn’t know where things were going to go.
So I’ve been a deal lawyer, litigator, prosecutor, and now a compliance leader of a 20-plus billion dollar enterprise because I didn’t stay linear. I just understood what the craft was, understood how to practice, but more importantly, in all those roles, how to lead.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. I think also a through line is that hard work ethic and reliability. Those things are the baselines of a good, strong brand. When people know that you’re going to do the work and they can rely on you, it gives them the freedom to give you opportunity and to help you think about other things.
So you just mentioned leadership. How do you think that you have developed your leadership style throughout all of these different roles?
Brian Ellis: Yeah, it’s been a learning. If you’re an active listener, I think that’s an important part of leadership. Because if you’re just talking, you’re not leading. So I think the single thing I’ve done consistently across the evolution of leadership—whether it’s paralegals on a matter, agents out in the field, or 400-plus people in an organization—is being an active listener, because you pick up so much around you, and the more leadership responsibility you obtain.
You really have to listen to what people are saying, because it’s not just what they’re saying, it’s what they’re feeling. One of the things that I try to do and have tried to make consistent is trying to meet people where they are and understand where they are.
I think my wife, who was in HR, always imparted wisdom on me about good leadership and bad leadership. One of the single bad things that lawyers don’t do, they don’t listen.
I’ve got the solution. I just, let me tell you all the ways in which you could have done things differently. What I found is when I just ask questions and I ask things like, “What was it about that you didn’t like? Tell me what you did like. What would you want somebody to do differently?” you get so much more out of people than just simply trying to tell them, “Well, if you’d just done it this way.”
So I go into these things as a leader, not presupposing an outcome. That has been the single thing for me as a leader. I’ve unlocked people. One of the things that has happened to me over the last several months—people know that I’m retiring from my role—people are just sending me notes about the things that I said to them along the way that unlocked something for them. Well, you can’t unlock things for people if you’re running your mouth.
If you listen and ask people and be seriously and earnestly interested in what it is about them that you can help in some way, or someone that you don’t know that I can put you in touch with that can help you in a certain way, just doing that has changed the trajectory of my leadership—from a couple of paralegals on a matter to organizations of four or five hundred people.
Paula Edgar: I think when people know that you are interested and invested in them, then they also show up differently for you. So it also makes the leadership "easier", because leadership is never easy, but people then become your people versus just soldiers in the ranks. They’re invested, duly invested.
I’ve heard so many good leaders talk about how a paralegal or legal secretary has saved their butts in times because they have heard them, right? They weren’t just treating them as if they were the help. They were treating them as an equal and someone who was a supportive part of the team.
I think that’s such an important—I'm glad you reflected on that because people ask me all the time about inclusive leadership. I’m like, "Just care about people," because truly, that’s what inclusion is.
Brian Ellis: Absolutely. I know I start my meetings—I have a standard cadence on my meetings. “How are you? How are your people? Okay, what business issues do we need to cover?” Sometimes, depending upon what the first two answers are, we don’t get to the business issues.
Because one, I trust my folks that they have them well in hand, and they’re basically just reporting news and not actually asking me for anything. Otherwise, they typically leave with, “Hey, look, I do need something from you today.” So that’s my standard. My standard meeting is, “How are you? How are your people? What are the business issues?”
When you do that, it makes everything so much easier, because people know they can trust you. They know you’re invested in not just beyond the quarter, the year, and the like. So for me, that’s how I think I’ve gotten the best out of the folks that have worked with me. I do actually genuinely care.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. So I think really good leaders create other leaders, right? Because how they have modeled, but also how they’ve been deliberately saying, “I think that you have this in you to do X.” Talk to me about some of your mentees and how you have imparted your leadership and your “Brian-isms” to them and made them better, whatever they are.
Brian Ellis: One of them said to me the other day, “I’ve got so many Brian-isms to take with me.” Because she just left the company, and she blamed me because she said, “You were too good of a mentor.” You know, again, I just try to really understand where people are.
I went a number of years without ever seeing anybody that looked like me who could help me along my way, specifically as an executive officer of a Fortune 100 company. I didn’t know anybody who had that and could tell me what that life was going to be like. But I was fortunate enough to have a guy named James Dallas. He was a former CIO at Medtronic and operating in Medtronic. He was at—oh geez—the paper company down in Atlanta, Georgia.
Anyway, he spent so much time with me about what it’s like to be in a servant leader role as an executive. The first thing he said to me: “Brian, you owe nothing except your time and your wisdom.”
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Brian Ellis: When he said it to me, I didn’t realize that’s what he was giving me. I just thought we were chopping it up as two Black senior executives. But what he said to me was, “You owe people your time and your wit because you have both of those.”
So what I really try to do, Paula, over at least this last decade, is always have time for my mentees. Always have time. It may not be in that very moment that you reach out, but always have time and always give them the space to explain what it is that they’re dealing with.
Obviously, I’ve been through a lot, haven’t been through everything. More important is to give them that time and that space, and then also give them that critical feedback. Because, you know, as I’ve said to my mentees, I spent decades getting nothing but destructive criticism, so I didn’t know how to take constructive criticism.
Paula Edgar: Okay, talk about that.
Brian Ellis: Right. You spend decades getting destructive criticism, it will steal you against being able to accept constructive criticism. So sometimes I would have to break down with them that there’s some truth in what you’re hearing. It may not all be accurate. I would say 90% of it might be inaccurate. But there’s a 10% in there that maybe you need to take stock in.
So with my mentees, I try to just drop those kernels on them to say, “Okay, what is it about those things? Is it about the feedback? What is it about that that’s not consistent or that is consistent? If it is consistent, plan to do something differently.”
With my mentees—and they span beyond the legal field, which is beyond me; anybody in business would ever listen to me—but they do. I think largely it’s because when you have such a vast career as I’ve had, and I have a network of people beyond the legal field, I can just plug people in to people who might be able to help them far beyond what I’m capable of, given my limited skill set.
But I’m open with my mentees to say to them, “Okay, what do you need and how can I facilitate?” Because someone who’s at this point in their career is more of a facilitator than anything else, that’s where you need to tap in.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. That’s the power of it, right? When you can say, “I built this network. You can have some of the juice that I’ve accrued.”
Brian Ellis: Yeah. That goes back to what I said earlier, Paula, about my roots. One thing about being from Chicago is I don’t mess with everybody. So I can suss out very quickly whether you’re a person of action or a person of self-action. I don’t deal with people who are all self-activated.
Paula Edgar: A hundred percent.
Brian Ellis: If you tap into my network and the people that are going to help you, it’s people who are like-minded. It’s people who want to see a sister get ahead, a brother get ahead, and not be someone who’s going to be hating or trying to find some way to climb or find some angle.
You know, “Can I get a billable hour?” My network is about helping people. So when someone sends somebody to me, they know they’re going to get helped. When I send someone to someone else, they know they’re going to get helped. It’s not a question.
“Hey, you—so-and-so sent you? You know my girl, Deb? Tell me.” She’ll say, “Brian, I need somebody who’s going to do this. Can you talk to me about that?” I’m like, “Girl, come on. We’ll talk quick.” Because she knows that if she asks me for something, I’m going to get it to her.
Paula Edgar: You’re going to get it.
Brian Ellis: If I ask Deb for something, she’s a person of action. That’s some action. It’s the people in my network that when we put somebody in play, the phone’s not going to not ring. It’s not going to be ignored. It’s not going to take forever to get returned.
So that’s what, in my circle and with my mentees, they know—that if you’re in that circle, you have access to these kinds of folks.
Paula Edgar: And a responsibility to keep it going.
Brian Ellis: Oh, without question. That’s the beautiful part about maybe retiring from Danaher, but I’m not retiring from life. I’m retiring from my roles. I’m hoping—I’m still looking at hopefully other board opportunities and whatever else. But I have so much fire and passion about seeing our folks thrive and develop and win.
And I have such a broader network of people who are like-minded that I don’t know—maybe that’s the time I really retire, but I don’t have that anymore. All those folks have either gone on, and they’re all doing something else. But I think I view this as life’s work beyond the boardroom. Really, I do.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I mean, I think that’s a great line, a through line into my next question, which is—you have spearheaded initiatives that support pro bono work and expand access to legal services. Why is it important for you to use your platform to serve others, as a part of your brand and who you are?
Brian Ellis: Well, first of all, I’ll go back to who I was raised by. So my father—I lost him a year ago, almost today—I lost him a year ago, but he affected so many people. When he retired, there were so many Black bankers at his retirement, and they would all say to me, “Why are you here?” They didn’t realize it was my father.
I didn’t realize that my dad was leaving Chicago and going down to the HBCUs and the finance programs and recruiting up to Chicago banks, all these folks that—I didn’t know what that was. I had no idea what that was. I just knew my dad was going down to Atlanta—[inaudible] Clark, Morehouse, Spelman. I knew that’s where he was going. I had no idea what he was doing.
Then turn the clock up some 25 years later, and there are all these Black bankers in the city of Chicago sitting at his retirement party asking me why I’m here. So I learned it from my father. I saw him in active community as being a mentor. So it was powerful stuff.
So yeah, very similarly for me, there’s no way that I could attain a little bit of recognition, power, authority, progress, and think that I got here by myself and not be invested in growth and development of others. So whether it’s through pro bono service when you’re in-house or even when you’re a big firm lawyer, the fact of the matter is you don’t have the time to do it yourself.
So I made it a mission then that I would use critical dollars, critical funding that I had the ability to impact, to deliver on the things I couldn’t do personally. It didn’t replace it, but at least it was the piece I could do. So I’m passionate about that. When I came into my job at Danaher, when my mentor who just passed away, Cam Findlay, called me and he said, “Hey, now that you have this job,” your predecessor, who had literally called me the day before to tell me the same doggone thing, “you will continue to support Equal Justice Works Foundation.”
It was not a question. As I got into it and David Stern was leading at that point in time, and I really understood the great work that the foundation did, I realized the opportunity that we could have an impact here in Washington and abroad. It was such a perfect fit for what we wanted to do. So we went from just sending dollars to a gala to now getting a foundational grant from our foundation here at Danaher. Plus, we support two fellows.
So that, to me, was part of a burning legacy—making sure that companies situated here in D.C. supported one of the largest not-for-profits that are doing good things out there that our lawyers just simply themselves did not have the time to do. That’s part of my passion. And the other side of it is, you know, if we aren’t responsible in the roles that we have, then shame on us. Shame on us.
Paula Edgar: I agree. I agree 100%.
Brian Ellis: And I could not sit here in this chair raised by the man who raised me and not be a champion. It’s not who I am, it’s what I am. And so I’m not apologetic for that at all. It’s part of who I am. And like I said, my village is the same group of folk, so it makes it a lot easier.
You know, it’s funny, I saw Juliette Pryor. It was funny, we laughed. We said, “You know, we only see each other at these events.” But we see each other at these events Juliette’s a huge champion. Look at all the people that she’s supported. Look at the wake behind this sister, you know what I mean?
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes.
Brian Ellis: It’s just funny. It’s like we all see each other, and it’s like we never see each other except in these events, but it’s okay because it’s the right stuff. It’s the important things.
Paula Edgar: Yes. Yeah, I spoke to her yesterday, that’s so funny. Yes, it’s true. There’s a similar feeling also when you connect with people who are your people. You just know that’s your people immediately, almost too. I feel like that’s been the case for several of you. I’m proud to have many people who are in leadership on my podcast because I want to show a vast audience this ethos about leadership—about how, you know, if they don’t get a chance to meet you, they’ll get a chance to know and hear what is important to you and to learn from it.
Brian Ellis: I tell my mentees, some of the young public GCs that I’ve helped mentor and bring along the way, “Your only responsibility is to give people your time and your wisdom.” Because if you don’t do that, then you are an empty chair in my mind. I wait for my time.
Paula Edgar: Yes. You’re passing down what you learned.
Brian Ellis: Period. You now are sitting in a seat of authority—relative authority. Shame on you if you don’t use it.
Paula Edgar: Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%. I think that one of the challenges that I’m experiencing now with the world that we’re living in is folks who have the opportunity to be impactful not choosing that opportunity. Again, I know there are lots of things that go into this, but the through line of what you’ve said this whole conversation has been about values. Our values is a big part of what your brand is, right? The podcast is about personal branding. It’s a big part of it. When you lose those things, you lose some of how people connect with you—how they perceive you—because you’re not living by the values that we hope you have.
Brian Ellis: It’s very simple. The people that raised me, I could never look them in the eye. My children know who I am. They know exactly who I am and what I stand for because they’ve seen it.
So I hope that whatever they do in their lives, I have a daughter who’s now hopefully going to be passing the bar here, and we’ll know soon.
Paula Edgar: She will.
Brian Ellis: Yep. No question about that. A part of that’s on her too, as it is on my wife. You have a purpose-driven life—not just simply trying to run out here and run hard, stay hard. But remember, it’s purpose-driven. I remind them, “You come from people like that. You come from people like that.”
Paula Edgar: Right, right, right.
Brian Ellis: My kids—there’s no daylight between who I am at home, who I am at work, who I am with my boys on the golf course. I’m the same guy.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I mean, that’s the perfect segue. What advice would you give to professionals, particularly those who may not feel like they’ve been seen or heard within their organizations, about how they build visibility and influence—but the key part to this question is, because it resonates from you—but also with authenticity?
Brian Ellis: Yeah. Authenticity is an interesting word. I go back—and I’m sorry to go back to this—but it’s rooted in who I was raised by.
Paula Edgar: No, no, please go.
Brian Ellis: The stories I got from my father, trying to break into banking in the 1960s—giving him phony math tests. The man taught math.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Brian Ellis: You know, the obstacles that he faced to running a bank—it wasn’t until his latter years when they finally gave him the ability to run a branch. Those lessons I learned from him were so instrumental in exactly this particular area. My dad would say to me, “Son, it’s not your job to educate these folks. It’s your job to know who you are. You put on a different face. If they don’t accept you for who you are, keep stepping.” That was a very early lesson.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Brian Ellis: My dad taught me—and unfortunately, I didn’t listen very well—but he was like, “Look, who you are at work doesn’t have to be who you are at home.” Is that a question of authenticity or is that a question of survivorship? Because they didn’t want him there in the first place.
Paula Edgar: Right.
Brian Ellis: So I use that as the storyline behind why it’s important to be able to code switch, why it’s important for us to be able to recognize place and time, and why, when you get to positions of authority, you don’t run from challenges. Because if you come to a job with your authentic self and you are authentic in who you are and how you present, that’s fine. But it doesn’t mean they have to get you all the time 100%. Because we’ve got to get you in positions of authority, and not get eliminated along the way. Because without that, the funnel, the screens, the filters, close you out.
Paula Edgar: It’s so true. Authenticity is not on and off—it is a scale.
Brian Ellis: Yes, it’s a scale. You know, there’s not a job in the Fortune 100 that wants Southside Brian to show up. That’s a different guy, right? But in the moment, I’ll give you as much as you’re willing to take.
I’ll give you a perfect example. When we were all going through the haze of the George Floyd murders and the now public spectacle of the mistreatment of Blacks across the United States, white folks got really comfortable asking me questions because my authenticity as an executive officer led them to get to a level of comfort to feel that they could ask me a question in vulnerability without getting full-on.
Paula Edgar: Southside.
Brian Ellis: So in those moments of authenticity, I had a choice to either not go down that path or to address the path. So I decided to address it. I addressed it in levels of humanity, that it wasn’t offensive. It wasn’t, “Well, of course you don’t understand this, because this isn’t how the police treat you.” I didn’t go down the “of course nots.”
I just gave them real-life examples—let them know that the person they feel very comfortable with every day is under assault.
Paula Edgar: Right, has also had experiences.
Brian Ellis: Real-time. The conversation with my Black son that I know you’ve never had with yours—and the looks of bewilderment, and some responses were met with “oh my,” some responses, literally tears. But it was choosing at what level of authenticity I wanted to have in the moment.
So you don’t get to steal me and remove me of my authenticity. I get to choose how much I want to share with you. That’s why I think authenticity is a very elastic word. It should not be pejorative in saying, “Well, you ain’t keeping it real.” No—I keep it real where I need to, and when I know I can actually make a difference with people and affect how they think about things versus coming full-on and just saying, “Well, of course you don’t understand.”
Because that’s not going to benefit anyone or anybody. It’s certainly not for the next person that looks like me that they would encounter.
Paula Edgar: I mean, it’s such a strong, strong point that also reminds folks that we have agency in that space, because I do think that everybody, whether they call it that or not, has to code-switch at some point.
When you go into something you don’t know, and they don’t know folks like you—and that’s not about race or gender or any diversity characteristic—it’s just about coming into a new culture. You’ve got to figure out how to navigate it before you can be like, “Okay, actually," I wear my big hoop earrings, although I wear my earrings anywhere. But the point is that you have to test the waters before you can swim in them. I think that’s a really important piece of that.
Brian Ellis: But it’s also in listening, right? I listen to the question to understand—is this really a question? Is it sincere, or are you trying to be a provocateur? If you’re trying to be a provocateur, you don’t even understand what you’re walking into.
So that’s when the other cat shows up. It really is one of those moments where, if you’re an active listener and you don’t lead with the obvious things like, “You’ll never understand. Of course you don’t understand. This isn’t your world. There’s no way you can understand,” kind of then you’ll block the actual ability to hear where they are—and the opportunity to actually be your authentic self and relate to them and say, “Listen, this is not the world that I live in. This is the world you live in.”
Paula Edgar: And connect deeper when you do that. Again, the work that I do—it’s like, I know we have three questions between me and you not knowing each other to finding some place of commonality.
Brian Ellis: Absolutely right.
Paula Edgar: We have to get into that space. There’s so much divisiveness that leaving opportunity for there to be that connection is a powerful skill. But everybody clearly does not have it, nor do they always want it.
Brian Ellis: Well, that’s right. That’s where you say the agency, right? You have the agency to decide how much you’re willing to give and share. Because, I mean, it can come with great pain. Walking you back through things and situations that were harmful to you, that you’re still trying to manage through.
Paula Edgar: Right. It’s true.
Brian Ellis: So I think agency is a good word. I would link the agency with your authenticity. I think that’s the way I would look at it.
Paula Edgar: I like it. I like that. All right, well, let’s talk about this. So you are now entering a new phase of your career. What do you think about legacy and how you want your brand to carry into the things that you’re going to do going forward?
Brian Ellis: You know, to be honest with you, I didn’t think about legacy—and I haven’t. Man, has it been smacking me in the face the last, you know—and it’s interesting because I don’t remember who I was talking to about this, but we were having this very conversation about how humbling it is to get the responses I’ve gotten since my retirement’s been announced.
It’s because I never went into this with an expectation of getting something out of it. I don’t spend time with people waiting for a comeback. I’m not putting anything on a ledger that you owe me. When that happens and you don’t realize how long the ledger is—of people that you’ve apparently affected or helped along the way—I guess they call that a legacy.
So for me, it’s not so much about what I want it to be; it’s how it’s formed and developed. I don’t think I would do anything differently going forward. I think the thing I want to happen—so it’s crazy. Last week, we were supposed to get together. Unfortunately, I had to go to a funeral. It was a funeral of my father’s best friend. Both of them were giants in the Chicago Black bankers' community.
When my father passed, he fell to pieces. He couldn’t believe my dad was gone. Not even a year later, I was at his funeral last week. The legacy—just around the people that were there at the funeral—people I’ve known for 40-plus years, all of whom said, “Your dad and Mr. Hampton—they were the giants. Let me tell you what he did. Let me tell you what he meant. Let me tell you the things they did together and how they changed lives.” A lot of Black bankers across the country.
So if I could leave, at some point, this is going to be me too, if I could just have that legacy where people walk away and say, “Do you know what that dude meant to me? How he helped me, how he helped this situation?”—never in any of those conversations about my father or my friend this past week did anyone talk about what he expected back.
Paula Edgar: Mm-hmm.
Brian Ellis: Never. It was always—they were so positive and so prospective. They were so positive and wanted to make sure we were doing the right things because they had confidence we would carry it forward. They gave examples of how they were carrying that on. That, to me, in my next phase, is all I focus on.
How do I continue to help people? The GCs that I mentor now, and all the non-lawyers that I mentor now—how do we make sure that this is instilled and ingrained, and that they’re following up on their mission, their tasks going forward? If I can leave that as a legacy, that’s good enough for me.
Paula Edgar: It resonates for me deeply, because my audience knows—because I talk about this freely—that my mother was killed on September 11th. When she was killed, there was almost a passion that was driven in me. I was like, “I have to have impact, because she’s not here to do it. I have to have impact.”
So it’s a through line in every single thing that I do. I’m giving, I’m giving, I’m giving. But I recall at her memorial, people from the janitor she worked with came and said, “She always saw me.”
And so my therapist—shout out to my therapist—always says, “You’ve already had the impact now.” So I impart that to you too—you’ve already made the legacy. Now it’s how you continue to make it.
You know in Hamilton where they say, “You always write like you’re running out of time”? I feel that way all the time. I’ve got to do more things, I’ve got to be more impactful, I’ve got to make sure people have better photos on LinkedIn. I’m passionate about all these things.
But for those of you listening and thinking about what you just said, Brian—it’s like, I already, from hearing what you just said, I'm like, "Okay, I'm seeing your father’s legacy right now." I’m here, and that’s a powerful thing. Even how you said that your kids know who you are and how you’ve always been—that’s a powerful thing too. That consistency and those values—all of that is personal branding. Without calling it that, it is that. It’s the “who you are” and the promise of you.
So I’m going to ask you my last few questions, because I have to—this is the part I’m waiting for. Because I know the first time I met you, I sat down next to you at a dinner, and I was like, “The who is this guy? He is fun. I like him.” I was like, “Who is he?” So I want to ask you this: what is the fun stuff? What do you do for fun?
Brian Ellis: Well, now the kids are all grown, the fun stuff is watching them—for them—watching them actualize. Not always fun sometimes, but watching them self-actualize, that’s fun for me.
Paula Edgar: Yes.
Brian Ellis: Especially having a daughter that’s in the law, right? Because I’ve forgotten more law than I can ever remember. But she’ll call me, “Dad, what do you think about this?” I’m like, “Wow, you’re making me think now. This is great.”
You know, my wife’s a lawyer too, so we’ll go back and forth with questions like, “Can you believe we’re talking to our daughter about this?” So that’s fun. But fun for me at this point—really, again, my incredible village. Spending time with my boys and our families.
We were just out in beautiful Sonoma. Let me tell you—that Town & Country moment out there in Sonoma, with my boy and his, and you know who that is—oh my god. I mean, that was the best. You can’t even imagine this get-together of such talented, incredible Black people having a ball, just enjoying each other. The whole weekend was set up just to enjoy each other’s company.
So we do a lot of that now. We’re traveling, and we’re fortunate enough to have friends who’ve done very well, so we get to go places where they have nice spots. We’re doing a lot of that, and we’re doing a lot of travel. We’ve gotten on this concert gig. We were in Rotterdam earlier this year. I think we’re going to do a Rotterdam–Montreux trip next year.
Paula Edgar: Nice.
Brian Ellis: So we’re doing big music trips, which is great. And of course, I’m a passionate golfer. So I got a crew that we’ve been playing together probably 24 or 25 years, and we have a big event once a year and little minis along the way. My wife just calls them, “Just go play golf. Stop calling.” But that’s where I find peace. For a game that’s maddening, I find peace there because we can spend four and a half hours in silence and just enjoy each other.
Four and a half hours rolling on the ground laughing, then the next several hours wherever we’re eating, drinking, hanging out, and talking. Just being vulnerable, brothers who get to know each other deeper than we already do. So that’s what I do for fun. Travel. My wife and I have been doing a lot of that, which is great, and playing golf is what I do.
Paula Edgar: I love it. So last two questions. What is the authentic aspect of your personal brand that you will never compromise on?
Brian Ellis: Being a fierce defender of my people.
Paula Edgar: I love that.
Brian Ellis: Again, I was raised by a brother who—that’s how he got down. Even though I didn’t know it at the time, I see the byproduct 25, 30, 40 years later. I’m unapologetic about that. You know, there have been situations where I’ve been in a position to not help someone. I’ve never done that. Whatever the reason—if I had the information and knew it wasn’t going to be flattering information—but I would never, ever hurt or stand in the way of one of ours being successful. I’m a fierce defender of our folks and a fierce promoter of our folks.
Paula Edgar: We need it.
Brian Ellis: So for me, if you were to ask anybody that knows me, they can tell you that’s the truth. There’s enough out there to harm us, to impede our progress, to validate whatever stereotype or concern or whatever that thing is that they want to be able to disqualify. I’m never—and would never—go out of my way to harm a brother or sister, ever.
We sit in such lofty positions of power. That’s such a misuse and abuse of your station to do something like that. I’m fiercely defensive of our folks and fiercely promoting of our folks at all times. That’s not just within the legal community—that’s in the business community, that’s everything else. Because it’s such a big piece of the pie. Those of us who can help divvy up some of that—the last thing I’m going to do is cut down your ability to get a piece of the pie.
Paula Edgar: I love it. Okay, final question. So the podcast is called Branding Room Only, which is a play on the term “standing room only.”
Brian Ellis: I like that.
Paula Edgar: Because I’m clever. So my last question for you is, what is your magic? What is the thing that would have a room—standing room only, no seats left—for people to experience about you?
Brian Ellis: I think my magic is that I’m just very real. I get that from day one. Even in my own company, people say, “General Counsel, you’re the most real person in this company.” At the bottom line, it’s just who I am.
I think the magic for me is that when you talk to me, you’re getting the same guy. I’m willing to tell it straight. I’m willing to tell it true. I’m willing to be vulnerable about my own shortcomings, my own misgivings. Because you can learn a lot through the mistakes that I’ve made through my career that I wouldn’t wish on anybody. The consequences have been unfortunate and long-lasting. I’m still trying to recover from some of them.
So I think when you talk to me in a room—and I’ve done this in large audiences—people have said to me, “Wow, that was very real.” Because we don’t have time for foolishness. I mean, why do I need to tell you why I’m so great? Let me tell you why I’m not so great. Let me tell you things that, man, I wish I had done differently. I don’t waste a lot of time with accolades and awards. That’s why you don’t see me plastered all over stuff. I refuse all that stuff. I could have a closet full of awards—I refuse all that nonsense because it means nothing.
It means nothing because of the stuff—let me tell you the stuff I didn’t do well. Let me tell you the stuff that I really wish I’d done differently.
Paula Edgar: Well, I’m going to take that baton. What do you wish you had done differently?
Brian Ellis: You know, I wish that I had been a bit more thoughtful about the impact that I was having on my family. I was thinking about provider in a very narrow sense. I didn’t have the wisdom or foresight to understand that absence is absence, in the most material meaning of the word.
Your children don’t care who you are, they want to know who you are and where you are and what you mean to them. When you’re absent, that leads them to all kinds of conclusions about how you think about them, their level of relevant importance in your life.
I was so focused on career, to provide. I had a very narrow sense of what “provide” meant, such that I left massive holes in relationships because I was providing, but I wasn’t here. I think if I could have told my younger self something like, “Hey man, there’s a price to this. Do you have to pay all of that, some of it, or none of it?” Those are open questions for me even to this day. I’m still struggling with, “Could I or should I have done something differently?” It’s not using the end result as a justification for the—you know.
Paula Edgar: It’s an interesting question, and it’s something that I think, obviously, you’re not the only person who has to navigate. But one of the things that’s come up several times in conversations that I’ve had on the podcast and outside of this—one of the things that folks who have had this reflection have said is that they don’t wish they had done differently.
They wish they had spoken about why they were doing what they were doing. That they wish they had said, “This is why I’m not here,” versus just not being there. Because to your point, kids don’t necessarily understand. Spouses don’t understand unless you’re communicating.
So again, when we know better, we do better. Thankfully, when we are sitting and we have opportunities to then talk about that—I think it’s powerful for you to be able to say, “I reflect back on that.” Because people often see stoic leaders who don’t make mistakes. You making that reflection is going to change, hopefully, somebody’s thought about how they’re navigating what they’re navigating right now, and at least allow them to make a choice.
Brian Ellis: I understand that these are dynamic words. “Provider” is a dynamic word. Provider of what? Are you providing them with spiritual health, mental health, physical health? Providing resources? That’s about the narrowest of the definitions. So it really is—if I were to say my single regret, I was not nearly as thoughtful about that question and that responsibility as a provider, and a very narrow view of what that meant. That is a single regret that I do have because it has led to—and continues to be—a challenge in my relationships because just being there was not the answer.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Again, coming back to the “we know better, we do better.” I love having reflections and being able to be accountable, and then saying, “Now that I know, I can shift that, should I choose to.” Because I do think dynamic words are also “mother” and “father.” A perception of how we parent is a dynamic thing.
Because for some people, it is “provider,” and that is what is needed. That’s what they were taught, and that’s what they were shown. That’s what the expectation is versus other ways that that can be perceived and navigated.
When I thought I wanted to interview you for the podcast, I knew it was because of what you said about being in the room. I experienced that about you. I was like, “Wow, there’s not a lot of people where I’m like…” Because, to a point that you made earlier, not everybody resonates the same everywhere they are.
That’s a way in which I’ve experienced you in the times that I’ve seen you. So I’m glad that the audience is getting a chance to experience a little bit of that as well too, because you are probably one of the most authentic people that I’ve ever met. Without even knowing you deep enough to know all of the things, I know that each time that I’ve seen you, I’ve been like, “Whoa.” You have impacted me and everybody else who was around in a way.
So I want to thank you for being on the podcast and taking the time to have this conversation. I know that you are going to change lives. You have already changed mine, and I appreciate the time, effort, and energy. That’s all. Thanks.
Brian Ellis: I so love your energy, so thank you for doing this as well. Like I said, if there’s anything I can do to help anybody that I can help, just let me know. I’m available.
Paula Edgar: Everybody, see you next time. Tell somebody to listen to this because you know they need to. Bye, y’all.
That's it for this episode. I appreciate you hanging out with me on Branding Room Only. Now, please do me a quick favor: head over to ratethispodcast.com/branding so more people can join this conversation. And make sure to stop by at paulaedgar.com/events to see what's next. Whether I'm live, online, or in person, I'd love to see you there. See you next time in the Branding Room. And until then, stand tall, shine bright, and always stand by your brand.
