Growing up in Southern California, Jeffrey Shieh was an avid gamer with a dream to one day work for a video game company. That goal always remained on the back of his mind even while studying molecular biology at University of California, Berkeley.
In his 20s, he finally hit a crossroads.
“I grew up playing video games. I was a gamer,” Shieh said, recalling hours spent with his favorite, Sonic the Hedgehog. “I sort of always had in the back of my mind an idea that maybe someday I would work for a video game company. Being able to get a job at a video game company was a dream come true in a lot of ways because I was able to match my interests, professionally as well as personally.”
Shieh earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in molecular biology, but he also minored in business administration from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
After graduation, he knew what path he should take. He went to law school, which eventually took him to where he is today: general counsel and head of business affairs at Sega of America Inc.
“I sort of always had an interest in business,” said Shieh, who was honored at the Business Journal’s General Counsel Awards on Nov. 14. “When I was trying to decide what I wanted to do after college, I think I was considering either going to medical school or, alternatively, law school, or maybe even business school.”
As Shieh considered his career paths, he said an international business course in college helped steer him to corporate work.
“That led to an idea that maybe I want to pursue a career in corporate law,” said Shieh, who was recognized as the top general counsel in the private company category.
All Roads Lead to Sega
While at U.C. Hastings College of Law (now U.C. College of Law, San Francisco) his favorite classes were his first-year course in contracts and courses in corporations and taxation. He interned at Sheppard Mullin’s Los Angeles office, working on the firm’s corporate caseload.
He then joined Sheppard Mullin as an associate after graduating from U.C. Hastings in 1999, working on corporate deals, financing and securities law.
Shieh spent about six years at Sheppard Mullin but soon decided the law firm life wasn’t for him.
“At some point, I decided that I wanted to work not necessarily at a law firm for the rest of my career and become a partner, but instead I wanted to try and go in-house, climb the corporate ladder to become general counsel someday,” Shieh said.
He took a job at Edison International, where he served as the company’s corporate governance and finance attorney.
In 2007, his foray into media began when he joined Evolve Media LLC as its vice president of legal and business affairs, specializing in corporate deals for online advertising and raising money from private equity firms for acquisitions and investments.
Electronic Arts (EA) in Playa Vista, the stretch of coastal Los Angeles known as Silicon Beach, was Shieh’s next stop. There, Shieh managed EA’s Los Angeles legal department and served as the company’s lead attorney for Electric Arts’ music and mobile/social/online video games.
His time there coincided with the introduction of the iPhone and that opened the door for an explosion of mobile gaming — and a new era of lawyering and counseling.
“With the advent of the smartphone, the app store and mobile gaming became much more enticing. I was able to be at the forefront of that industry,” Shieh said.
Shieh would move on to Activision in Santa Monica, where he worked on legal
matters associated with video games and esports products.
He spent nearly two years as the senior vice president of legal and business affair at Oak View Group, the company that built Moody Center in Austin, Texas and redeveloped Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
That gaming experience led him to get tapped by Sega of America, where he became the company’s head of legal and business affairs in 2020.
He spent the next four years working his way up the ladder and becoming Sega of America’s general counsel and head of business affairs in April.
He said being a general counsel, more than being a law firm partner, best served his understanding about the inner workings of Corporate America.
Sega of America offered Shieh that opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream.
“We’re geared toward making video games and entertaining consumers. It’s a great opportunity,” Shieh said. “You have to remember that, even when you are grinding away on a contract. What we do here is a privilege.”
