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Rashelle Tanner

Software development

Rashelle Tanner(she/her)

Director, Risk and Ethics Learning · Meta

BA Philosophy Howard University, JD Seattle University School of Law, USA Bobsled Board of Directors, Urban League of Seattle, Board of Directors,

Rashelle is the Director of Regulatory, Risk & Ethics Learning at Meta where her team engages the entire workforce through annual episodic storytelling, and other learning modalities designed to make it easy for the workforce to understand how to navigate risks and operate responsibly in a highly innovative and fast-paced environment. Previously, Rashelle held key positions at Microsoft, where she served as the Director of Integrity & Compliance Learning and Assistant General Counsel. Her work at Microsoft, was featured in the Wall Street Journal and Seattle's King 5 News. Rashelle’s impact at Microsoft included reimagining the delivery of Microsoft's annual Standards of Business Conduct (which she renamed Trust Code), employing innovative storytelling techniques capturing employees attention over five annual “seasons” of the Trust Code series. Her work transformed how Microsoft's global workforce prioritized trust and integrity in their roles. Rashelle is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Seattle University Law School, contributing to the Master of Legal Studies in Compliance and Risk Management program. She was previously the General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer for CRISTA, after beginning her legal practice as a labor & employment litigator at the Seattle-based law firm, Williams Kasner. While at Williams, Rashelle was sworn in to practice at the United States Supreme Court. Rashelle's dedication to ethics extends to her community involvement. She actively participates on the board of trustees for the USA Bobsled and Skeleton teams, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, and the Seattle Repertory Theater. Further, she served as co-chair for the Loren Miller Bar Association’s Judicial Evaluation Committee for three years, leading judicial candidate interviews and evaluations for the Washington State Supreme Court and other state, county, city, and municipal courts. She is also a former advisory board member for A.C.E.S., which explores the intricate intersections of anti-bribery, anti-corruption, and international trade and sanctions compliance challenges on a global scale. Rashelle holds degrees from Seattle University Law School and Howard University. She is also a graduate of Leadership Tomorrow, and was listed among The Top 50 Women Leaders of Washington for 2024 and has been sworn in to practice before the United States Supreme Court.

Their story

How to Find Bliss in a legal career

18 min

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Key quotes

“Seek bliss in your work. And what I thought about it was, seek meaning. Find it. Don't just expect the bliss to come to you.”

Rashelle Tanner

“Basically the difference between people who do the thing and don't do the thing is doing the thing, meaning you just have to do it.”

Rashelle Tanner

“I feel like I do have to work very, very hard for people to see me. I felt that for a while I wasn't listened to and I was underestimated. And I did attribute that to my race because that felt familiar kind of throughout my career.”

Rashelle Tanner

“Things that I have done for the right reasons have led me to greater things.”

Rashelle Tanner

“The best advocate for yourself and your ideas is you.”

Rashelle Tanner

Career highlights

Your past experiences always feed your next opportunity — even when it's not obvious.

Rashelle explains how her employment law work led to a general counsel role, which led to building a compliance program, which is exactly why Microsoft recruited her.

Find what brings you joy in your work and lean into it — it's what makes hard days survivable.

Rashelle realized she loved writing and storytelling, so she shaped her compliance role around content creation and ended up producing a Netflix-style series for 140,000 employees.

Seek bliss in your work — don't wait for it to find you.

She discovered this quote in 1998 during a tough first year at a law firm, reading a random magazine on a sick day. She still has it framed in her house.

Talk to people actually working in the careers you're curious about — your view of what's possible will expand.

Rashelle only knew lawyers from TV growing up. Law school showed her how many different directions a legal career could go, which changed everything for her.

Don't let doubt stop you — it doesn't go away, you just learn to work past it.

Rashelle admits she still feels doubt today, but looking back at past successes makes it easier to push through fear and keep moving.

You are your own best advocate — speak up for yourself and your ideas.

After being introduced as 'staff' in a meeting where she was actually the general counsel, Rashelle reflects that no one else will fight for your visibility the way you will.

Student summary
Rashelle Tanner is a Black attorney who built a career in corporate compliance and ethics at some of the biggest tech companies in the world — including Microsoft and Meta. She didn't come from a family of lawyers. Her mom was a dental hygienist, her dad a jeweler. But somewhere around 8th grade, she decided she wanted to be a lawyer, and she kept that goal alive even when she wasn't sure it was possible. Her path wasn't a straight line — she started as a labor and employment litigator, became a general counsel and VP of HR, then pivoted into compliance program design, and eventually landed at Microsoft through a LinkedIn message she almost never saw. That career arc is proof that skills stack in unexpected ways. What makes Rashelle's story especially powerful is what she does now: she uses storytelling — think Netflix-style drama series — to teach 140,000 Microsoft employees how to make ethical decisions at work. She writes the scripts, works with video editors, shapes the narrative. She jokes that if she hadn't become a lawyer, she probably should have been a writer. Her job is a reminder that careers in tech aren't just for coders. There's real space for creative, justice-minded people who love words and ideas. Rashelle speaks honestly about being underestimated as a Black woman in professional spaces. She talks about walking into rooms as the only woman, being mistaken for staff when she was actually the general counsel closing the deal. She doesn't sugarcoat it, but she also doesn't let it be the whole story. Her advice: do the work in front of you, stay open to opportunity, and remember that everything you experience — even the jobs that feel disconnected — is building something for what comes next. For first-gen students especially, Rashelle's journey is a blueprint. She figured out what lawyers actually do by being curious and talking to people — not because she had lawyers at home to ask. She went to Howard University for undergrad and Seattle University Law School, won a jury trial in her third year of law school with her whole family in the courtroom, and kept growing from there. Her message is simple but real: the difference between people who do the thing and people who don't is just doing the thing.