Nicole Janigian Simonian

Having served as outside counsel and a strategic advisor for over 25 years for a wide range of clients from emerging growth to Fortune 100 companies throughout Asia, North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, Nicole brings in-depth experience to advising companies on their movement of goods, services, and people across borders. She is a strategic advisor to public, private equity, and portfolio companies spanning a number of industries, including aerospace, personal care, semiconductors (assembly and testing), food and beverage, medical devices, retail, apparel and textiles, advertising, outsourcing services, nonprofit organizations, and universities.

She regularly advises companies from their initial market entry through their ongoing international operations, including on compliance obligations throughout their supply chains. With years of experience both with client service and practice leadership—as the current practice co-chair and the International Trade and Asia practice leader at her prior firm—she advises on issues ranging from international trade, international employment and human rights, and investigations to corporate and tax structuring, including related to market access, cross-border onshoring/offshoring, outsourcing, buy-sell transactions, joint ventures, and pre- and post-integration strategies.

Drawing on her extensive experience as outside international counsel, Nicole recognized the need to support her clients in mobilizing and managing global workforces in conjunction with companies expanding their international footprint and early on identified the need to mitigate the risks of sending people across borders. She is a leading advisor and pioneer in this field, incorporating the global mobility practice as part of the international trade practice both here and at her prior firm for the last two decades. Nicole effectively teams with her clients’ compliance and trade, employment, data privacy, corporate, tax, and finance functions.

Nicole is a leading authority in designing and implementing global mobility programs for companies, developing expatriate assignments for personnel between countries, and advising on regulatory and compliance issues that arise for companies sending people across borders in more than 50 countries, including with regard to data privacy, foreign corrupt practices and local anti-corruption, workplace rules, and cross-border investigations. She was recently appointed to the Global Mobility Lawyer (GML) Editorial Board and recognized as building a leading team in Global Mobility. She frequently conducts roundtables and trainings on international compliance issues before domestic and global in-house counsel and compliance departments.

Nicole is an active member of the Crowell and wider legal communities. In addition to the International Trade practice leadership roles noted above, Nicole participates in the firm’s Investigations and Retail & Consumer Products working groups and in the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Lawyers Affinity Group, and serves on the firm’s Well-Being Committee. From publishing “A Lawyer’s Letter to Her Younger Self” in Bloomberg Law to participating in groups that promote the next generation of lawyers, including Crowell’s Women’s Leadership Initiative and as global co-chair of her prior firm’s women’s affinity group, Nicole mentors and shares her professional and personal path with younger lawyers.

Marshalling her unique experience and resources, Nicole brings a holistic approach to her clients navigating the myriad of international laws and trade bodies, while appreciating the cultural nuances of international trade and doing business across borders. This is particularly relevant in the continued regulatory environment. Nicole has a passion for international policy issues and serving the community. She is the co-founder and host of Global Trade Talks, a podcast that shares brief perspectives on key global issues on international trade, current events, business, law, and public policy as they impact our lives. She is a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the chair of the Chamber’s Global Initiatives Council, and a member of the Chamber’s World Trade Week Committee. She is also a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, an international affairs organization focused on public policy issues impacting the West Coast. Nicole is a former board member of Inner City Law Center, active in the Armenian American community, and participated in her children’s school committees.