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Jennifer Chung – AccuWeather: Diversity in the forecast
Offit Kurman’s Mathew Asbell mentioned in Vanguardlawmag.com
As Published on vanguardlawmag.com
April 17, 2020 | New York City, NY
For nearly 60 years, AccuWeather has belied one of Bob Dylan’s most iconic lyrics: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
What began as a service in central Pennsylvania disseminating localized weather forecasts has blown up like an all-encompassing low-pressure front. Today, AccuWeather forecasts are found online, in print, over the airwaves, and by asking Alexa.
As the pioneer in commercial weather forecasting, AccuWeather is big enough to be ubiquitous in the industry, but it’s not a status taken lightly by the company—or Jennifer Chung, its general counsel.
“We always want to be on the forefront in terms of technology,” says Chung, who joined the company in 2019 following a three-year stint at Time Inc. “Our apps need to be efficient, attractive and user friendly. They are fantastic and my job is to protect them.”
Winds of change
Dr. Joel N. Myers founded AccuWeather in 1962 and remains its CEO. He first forecasted the weather for a utility company in Pennsylvania. Within a year, he’d added a ski area, but the company provided only winter forecasts initially as the skiing industry, construction companies and local highway departments became customers.
In the early 1970s, AccuWeather entered the media spaces: first through radio, followed by TV and print.
Still headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania, AccuWeather’s forecasts are now accessed by more than 1.5 billion people globally, featured on 180,000 websites, and receive more than 35 billion data requests daily.
But it’s not just weather worries that bring people to AccuWeather, Chung says. It’s the long-range accuracy, detail, specificity and accessibility that make the difference.
“At the very least, you can rely on the AccuWeather forecast to tell you whether you need an umbrella for a specific neighborhood, even in a large city like New York,” she says.
Diminishing the paper storm
Since arriving at the company, Chung has made automation a big piece of the company’s legal climate change. In 2020, that focus will fall specifically on the contracting processes, integrating everything from intake to storage to a Microsoft Dynamics customer-relationship management platform.
ABOUT MATHEW ASBELL
Matthew Asbell assists clients in clearing, obtaining, enforcing, and defending trademark rights in the United States and throughout the world. He also provides advice on patents, copyrights, domain names, and other related areas. With prior background in the entertainment industry, information technology, and medicine, he is comfortable working with a wide range of clients in diverse industries. In addition, his certifications as a Social Media Strategist and software Master Instructor equip him to handle complex intellectual property matters arising in the Web 2.0 space.
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