After becoming a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP in Los Angeles in 2017, Christopher Ahn said on this week’s Drinks With the Deal podcast, “I felt like I didn’t have clarity about what I wanted to do for the rest of my career. I couldn’t articulate the things about the job that motivated me.”

To gain perspective, Ahn and his wife took a sabbatical to travel in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. While Ahn was away, his mentor at Proskauer called to tell him that the general counsel at James Perse Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based retail brand, had quit.

Upon his return to the U.S., Ahn was hired for the job. He jumped at the chance to have a hybrid business/legal role, he said. “It was the perfect opportunity to do a thing that I felt was my career destiny when I went to law school.”

The experience taught Ahn “to think about every decision from a business perspective,” he said. “You get an appreciation for what drives value.” But he missed the camaraderie and intellectual rigor of working at a law firm, and he returned to Proskauer in 2021. On the podcast, Ahn also discussed the development of his career and what he enjoys about being the parent of two young children.

Listen to the podcast with Christopher Ahn below:

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