Cornelius Advisors is an external General Counsel consulting practice providing a high level of tailored, hands-on attention to a select portfolio of start-up and early stage companies as well as established organizations lacking internal legal counsel.  We can help you manage your risk within your level of tolerance and engineer cost effective solutions across your organization designed to support the way you do business.  We can work with your current outside counsel to make sure that their time is focused on what is critical to your success.

Neil is the founder of Cornelius Advisors.  He has been the first-ever General Counsel for publicly-traded and privately-held innovative companies on aggressive growth trajectories. Neil has provided leadership and counsel in complex organizations such as The College Board, Vivendi and Citigroup, and in a broad array of sectors including education products and services, media, publishing & gaming, consumer packaged goods, environmental services & engineering and financial services. Neil has also provided counsel and advice to venture-backed start-up technology companies in incubator environments.  

As the first-ever General Counsel of the College Board, Neil helped lead the revitalization, growth and worldwide expansion of that organization's operations while driving a nearly fourfold increase in revenues to over $1Bn. Prior to this, Neil was the first-ever North American General Counsel for Paris-based Vivendi S.A., responsible for the legal aspects of all of Vivendi’s Mergers & Acquisitions activities, as well as legal, compliance and risk management within Vivendi’s holdings, throughout North America. While at Vivendi he simultaneously served as General Counsel of one of its publicly-traded commercial subsidiaries, Aqua Alliance Inc. which provided design, operations and engineering services in the environmental services sector.  Previously, Neil was in-house counsel within Citigroup’s retail broker dealer. He began his career at the global law firm of Dewey Ballantine.