AIG Recruits Top Stripe Lawyer Trish Walsh for General Counsel

American International Group Inc. will as of Dec. 1 bring on Stripe Inc.’s legal group leader Patricia “Trish” Walsh as its new general counsel.

The financial and insurance services giant said Thursday that Walsh will report to its chairman and chief executive, Peter Zaffino, and oversee AIG’s legal, compliance, and regulatory functions when she comes aboard later this year.

Luciana “Lucy” Fato, AIG’s legal chief since 2017, took on additional communications and government affairs duties three years later as the pandemic ravaged the insurance industry.

As of Oct. 1, Fato is being elevated to the newly created role of vice chair. The company, which first announced Fato’s promotion earlier this month, disclosed in a subsequent securities filing that she’ll receive $1 million in annual base salary and more than $5 million in short- and long-term incentive awards.

Fato didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.

AIG’s most recent proxy statement shows that Fato earned more than $10.6 million in total compensation during 2022, up from a nearly $8.8 million pay package the year prior. AIG has yet to disclose what it will pay Walsh and her compensation at privately held Stripe was unavailable.

Trish Walsh

Walsh didn’t respond to a comment request but said in a statement posted to LinkedIn that she has “long admired” AIG and Zaffino, whom she works with as a fellow board member at Corebridge Financial Inc., a Houston-based life insurance and retirement business spun-off by AIG last year and one of the largest IPOs of 2022. Walsh received $205,000 from Corebridge for her board work in 2022, per a proxy statement.

Walsh, in her LinkedIn farewell, called her decision to leave online payment-processor Stripe difficult. “The past four years, leading the Stripe team has been the greatest honor of my professional lifetime,” she said.

San Francisco-based Stripe said in a statement that Walsh “transformed our legal team, strengthening our capabilities in every area,” praising its outgoing legal chief for “her commitment to Stripe and our users.”

Walsh, who previously worked in-house at insurers Voya Financial Inc., Cigna Group, and MassMutual and as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb, was one of dozens of lawyers recruited by Stripe that year to capitalize on pandemic-driven demand.

Stripe’s path to becoming a public company has stalled amid a stagnant IPO market, but it has continued to recruit top legal talent, including several other Cleary Gottlieb alums.