BUILDING A LIFE SHE LOVES

When Pinterest announced Bill Ready as its new chief executive officer in June 2022, Glencoe’s Wanji Walcott couldn’t wait to extend her congratulations.

“When I called Bill, he said he had a crazy question for me . . .‘Would you work with me again?’” Walcott remembers.

This question wasn’t crazy at all. Ready and Walcott had worked together years before at PayPal. And Walcott was a seasoned Pinterest user.

“When Bill talked to me about the strategy and vision he had for Pinterest, I just became captivated by Pinterest’s mission, which is to help everyone create a life that they love,” she says. “And more importantly, the opportunity Bill was laying out to position Pinterest as a positive place online really resonated with me. I wanted to be a part of a movement where we were going to hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

Walcott joined forces with Ready in November 2022, as Pinterest’s Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer. At Pinterest she oversees their legal, compliance, trust & safety, public policy, public affairs, and sustainability teams. Walcott’s impressive resume also includes tenures as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel at Discover Financial Services, as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at PayPal, and as Senior Vice President and Managing Counsel at American Express. Walcott holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Howard University and a Juris Doctor from the Howard University School of Law.

Walcott’s success in the legal profession has caught no one by surprise.

“Since the age of 5, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer,” she explains. “My father always said to me, ‘One day you’re going to be a lawyer.’ I think he said that because I was always questioning things, kind of argumentative, but also a really strong advocate for myself and other people. I was the kid in my neighborhood that if you couldn’t stay outside and play late, I went and talked to your mom to give her the logical reason why it was OK for you to stay out and play a little longer. I was that kid. I’m the first lawyer in my family. My dad planted that seed and he was right. Being a lawyer has been a rewarding experience.”

Walcott humbly credits her success to several mentors in her life, including her first boss who predicted her future success.

“Two years out of law school, my first boss, Bob Downing, told me that one day I could be a general counsel,” Walcott says. “I was completely blown away because I had the utmost respect for him. He was the general counsel for an operating company we worked for. When he said that to me, I replied, ‘You mean someday I could do your job?’ And he said, ‘No. Some day you could be the general counsel for this entire company.’ He saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. That was so powerful. From that moment forward, I knew what I wanted to do.”

As she blazed her path forward, Walcott was always mindful of the reality that there weren’t many African Americans—and even fewer African American women—in top positions in legal departments of America’s Fortune 1000.

“In 2021, for Fortune 1000 general counsels in particular more than 800 were white and about 650 were male,” Walcott says. “Even though I feel like we’ve made progress, there is still a lot of work to be done here. One of the things I’m very committed to in the legal profession and beyond is advancing diversity and ensuring everyone with the skill and the will to succeed has the opportunity to do so. I’m invested in making time and space for the next generation of leaders. While I’m definitely on the back nine of my career, I want to make sure that those coming up behind me have access and at least an understanding of how to develop themselves.”

Walcott lives by the mantra, “To whom much is given, much is required.” For the last 18 years, she has served on many nonprofit boards, including the Minority Corporate Counsel Association where she is board chair; the Chicago Council on Global Affairs; the Chicago Botanic Garden; the Economic Club of Chicago; the Woman’s Board for the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Frederick Gunn School. Walcott is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council, the nation’s premier membership organization for Black executives.

“One of the most fascinating things I’ve found since moving to Chicago is the city’s civic-mindedness,” Walcott says, who moved to the Chicago area with her family in 2019 and has residences in both Glencoe and downtown. “I’ve lived all over the country and there is such a heart for civic engagement in the Chicagoland area. During the pandemic when I thought things would be very quiet was when I became most engaged.”

Walcott shared her delight in being one of the sponsors who brought Bahamian textile artist Gio Swaby to the Art Institute last year. “It’s so great for children to see themselves reflected in art and the living artists who create it,” she says. “It is easier to picture a future for yourself when you can identify with someone who is living that reality.”

Being active on Pinterest plays a role in the reality Walcott lives.

“I started using Pinterest in 2017 when my husband and I bought a house in need of renovation,” she says. “Before we embarked on the project, my contractor asked me to share my Pinterest boards with him. Much of our idea-sharing happened via Pinterest.”

Since arriving at Pinterest, Walcott’s use of the platform has grown to include pinning salad dressing recipes, golf tips, hostess gifts, and what a 50+-year-old woman should wear to a Beyoncé concert.

“I think the most creative way I’ve recently heard someone use Pinterest was studying for the bar exam—can you believe that?” she asks. “This young woman told me she found lots of good outlines for the bar exam on Pinterest. Who knew!”

While Pinterest’s corporate culture is meeting-driven, Walcott does her best to leave room in her schedule for impromptu conversations with colleagues. She even holds weekly office hours for those who might not normally have the chance to interact with her to share ideas. And when her calendar allows, one might find her improving her golf swing at Conway Farms, or dining with her family at one of her favorite North Shore haunts—Guildhall, Pomeroy, or Le Colonial.

“I try to do two things every day,” Walcott says. “Exercise and breath work. I started doing this several years ago after a wellness retreat with my daughter. If any stress starts to creep in, I think about my breathing and it grounds me. This allows me to start my day in a mindful way, and I love that.”

Definitely an idea worth pinning.

To learn more about Pinterest, visit pinterest.com.