Sharon R. Flanagan

The technology industry is all about innovation and outside-the-box thinking, so it's no surprise much of Flanagan's practice involves a similar approach.

Flanagan, managing partner of Sidley Austin's San Francisco office, said while advising public technology and health care companies such as eBay Inc. and PayPal Inc. on corporate governance issues is the bread and butter of her work, her practice is more wide-ranging.

Last year Flanagan led an international group of more than 100 private and governmental organizations and other participants in transferring oversight of the overall internet domain naming function from the United States government to the global community.

"There was no precedent, this was completely bespoke and we just had to create it out of whole cloth," said Flanagan. "It was also under time pressure given the election that was coming. We had to get it done by the end of September or the whole thing could have been scuttled."

Flanagan worked on the process by which the U.S. government allowed its contract with the regulatory body responsible for internet domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN, to expire, giving up oversight over domain names to, in effect, everyone.

Whereas oversight of internet domain names was previously controlled by ICANN, a nonprofit created by the U.S. government, Flanagan said her task was to "create a structure that would allow [the naming function] to be under a more general global community."

She added the work was not too far removed from her work in corporate governance. "It fit in in the sense that I do a lot of governance work and it is at its heart...a governance project because it's about how do you ensure oversight of this nonprofit corporation."

Flanagan is also a member of Sidley Austin's executive committee.

— Chase DiFeliciantonio