Candice Cook Simmons

Candice Cook Simmons is the chief strategy officer for RadicalMedia—a fully integrated global media and communications company that produces content for film, television, and digital platforms, as well as immersive experiences and events. With offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Berlin, Radical develops, creates, and produces commercial campaigns for major brands, award-winning films across a range of genres, TV series for virtually every network, digital platforms, and experiential events.

Simmons is also the managing partner at The Cook Law Group, PLLC, a published writer, noted philanthropist, and business strategist in the technology, entertainment, and corporate sectors.

Educated at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt Law School with attendance at additional programs at Oxford and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, her career began in private practice as a litigator where she represented luxury hotels, television and cable executives, real estate developers, technology companies, and an assortment of Forbes' and Fortune's notable business executives and corporate giants. Cook later expanded her experience beyond litigation to include a vast array of intellectual property, media, telecommunications, and social media issues. Her success in finding creative business-oriented solutions resulted in her invitation to join the Advisory Committee of several startups including music industry technology startup BlazeTrak, Para Music Group, and fashion industry pioneer, Fashion Advance. Today, Cook's firm has handled groundbreaking intellectual property matters—including the trademarking and strategy behind Dominique Ansel’s Cronut™ pastry—and business, entertainment, social impact/entrepreneurship, and talent issues for clients across the globe including Japan, China, Israel, Monaco, Mexico, France, U.S., UAE, and the UK.

Her success resulted in her being honored as a Pearl Honoree in 2009, selected as a finalist for Atlanta's Power 30 Under 30 Award, and a winner of the Celebration Award in Law in 2012. In 2013, she was selected as the Hollywood Power Player by Hollywood & Vine Magazine and in 2014 she was selected as the Barrier Breaker award recipient for her work in the field of law and for her vast hands-on philanthropic engagement addressing education, humanitarian matters, and social justice. She appeared in the HBO documentary "Good hair," the 2009 winner for Special Jury Prize for U.S. documentary at the Sundance Film Festival as well as the documentary Sag Harbor on the OWN network as part of the #Selma50 network campaign. She has also appeared in the American Bar Association Journal, O Magazine, Elle Magazine, The Today Show, and Sirius Radio. She was cited as one of the top interviews for the “Talentedly” platform of 2015 as well as one of the top-five podcast interviews for “Today’s Leading Women.” In 2015, she was the number 1 downloaded interview on the business podcast “Beyond The Business Suit”.

Cook is a contributing writer for the Levo League, Women 2.0, and Conscious Magazine and was a contributing author of the book Conquering The Bar Exam and Co-Editor of the Culture Shift Labs 20 People To Watch of 2015. She serves as an Advisory Executive Member for the United Way of New York's Young Professional Board, is an Advisory Board Member for TheHistoryMakers in Chicago, works to increase engagement as a Committee Member for Jazz at Lincoln Center, served as the Young Professional Board Member for both the Apollo Theater and New York Needs You and served on the Leadership Board for the Council of Urban Professionals. For the past two years, Cook has worked with the 12 Days of Christmas Organization in New York to provide necessities to families across the five boroughs in New York during the month of December and she has also worked to increase STEM awareness through her Advisory Board Work with the M.O.B. Accelerator and CultureShiftLabs. Most recently, Cook was proud to see her work with the rich history of TheHistoryMakers (the single largest archival collection of African-American oral history) rewarded via its acquisition by the Library of Congress. In 2014, Cook served as a Host for the Andrew Goodman Foundation Hidden Heroes Award. In addition to her legal practice, Cook is currently using her platform to aid the Ford Foundation via its Think Tank to assist with the “innovation economy” of Detroit.

Sub-specialities: Sustainable Environmental Economic Growth in Rwanda, Economic Growth Opportunity/Trends on the Continent (specifically Rwanda, South Africa, Ghana), Intellectual Property, Millennials and global trends, Social Impact Entrepreneurship, Documentaries/apps aiding in humanitarian efforts, the use of technology to provide aid during humanitarian crises, Grass Roots Activism Movements, Media Law, Legal Cases in Hollywood, Domestic Violence in Sports, Domestic Violence in the Music Business, Broken Windows Theory Policing, 3-D printing and prosthetics for children using technology used by NASA, Diversity in tech