John Connolly, a former director of product management at Meta has been appointed as the chief product officer of London-based AI legal tech Definely.
Connolly has more than 20 years of experience in product, having held product managment and CPO roles at Dext, BenevolentAI, Elliptic and most recently Meta, which he joined in 2023.
Now at Definely, Connolly will support the firm’s product development team and be tasked with aligning its long-term product roadmap with Definely’s overall strategy.
“Definely is addressing one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today – the successful use of AI to deliver real business value,” Connolly said.
“As the legal industry reaches a critical inflexion point, Definely is well-positioned to help law firms and in-house teams as they face rising workloads and growing complexity. The primary challenge for AI is not just efficiency; it must also help to preserve human understanding and professional integrity, values at the core of Definely’s strategy.”
Founded in 2017, Definely was among the first of a now thriving subsector of legal tech focused on how AI can significantly speed up the manual processes of the legal trade.
Definely is used to draft and review legal documents and has raised tens of millions in funding, most recently in the form of a $30m Series B round last year.
“John is a versatile leader with a proven track record in both Big Tech and high-growth scale-ups, combining technical depth, commercial strategy and board-level leadership,” said Definely co-founder and chief executive Nnamdi Emelifeonwu.
“Appointing John as CPO will be a significant step in driving the company’s international expansion and delivering innovative technological solutions for the legal sector.”
Read more: Definely’s head of AI named as next CTO
