Effie D. Silva has served as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary since 2022. In this role, Effie leads the Company’s legal, risk management, food safety, government affairs, and corporate reporting functions.
Effie D. Silva is an experienced public company leader who has a stellar track record advising the board of directors and senior management on a broad range of issues, including transactional, litigation, corporate governance, compliance, and DEI matters.
Previously, she had a successful tenure as the Ethics and Compliance Leader for Cargill, Inc., $165B private global food and agriculture company. As the most senior compliance officer at Cargill’s $50B Protein and Salt division, she advised the Board of Directors on major compliance matters and led a team that was responsible for identifying and mitigating risks and developing business-sensitive solutions to complex problems. Prior to joining Cargill, Ms. Silva was a Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), a $40B public food company, Ms. Silva was responsible for all legal matters impacting Tyson’s $10B Prepared Foods’ business unit and the enterprise-wide Sustainability department.
In addition to her in-house experience at Fresh Del Monte, Cargill, and Tyson Foods, Ms. Silva brings 20 years of complex business law practice at prominent global law firms. She served as a Partner at McDermott Will & Emery and Duane Morris, and as a Senior Attorney at Baker & McKenzie, where she regularly advised corporate leaders and Boards of Directors of multinational companies on corporate governance, regulatory compliance and investigations, M&A, complex business litigation and international arbitration matters.
Ms. Silva is bilingual and has global experience across LATAM, APAC, and EMEA. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of International Arbitration (FCIArb) and a Qualified Arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), Conflict Prevention Resolution (CPR), and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). She is also Board Certified in International Litigation and Arbitration with the Florida Bar and has extensive cross-border experience advising and strategizing multi-jurisdictional disputes across venues, both nationally and internationally.
Ms. Silva earned her Juris Doctor degree in Law from University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she currently serves on the Board of Directors, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations from Wellesley College.
