Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Lydia Zakhari

Lydia Zakhari spent two decades in senior enterprise leadership across law, finance, operations, and governance. She leads enterprise strategy, organizational counsel, and stakeholder alignment at Primary Ventures.

Lydia Zakhari

Enterprise Leadership

Lydia served as General Counsel and senior executive of the NFL and NFL Players Association’s collectively bargained benefit program — one of the most significant athlete-centered initiatives in professional sports.

The role extended well past legal oversight. It covered strategic planning, financial oversight, operational management, governance, compliance, and enterprise risk, alongside the cross-sector partnerships built to support career development and post-transition outcomes for thousands of former professional athletes.

Earlier Practice

She began as a complex commercial litigator representing Fortune 100 companies, then moved into corporate and business law and consequential, high-value transactions.

That sequence matters. A litigator’s instinct for risk, a corporate counselor’s command of structure, and an executive’s understanding of enterprise rarely sit in the same person, and it is the combination that defines how she works.

What She Brings

Lydia operates with equal command across the strategic, operational, legal, and relational dimensions of an organization. For institutions navigating transformation, growth, or sector-level complexity, that range is the difference between advice that addresses one lane and counsel that holds across all of them.

Education

J.D., University of Texas School of Law

M.S., Justice, Law and Society, American University

B.A., Justice, Law and Society, American University

Recognition

Best Lawyers in America

Featured profile, Vanguard Law Magazine

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