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Stories and perspectives to drive in house counsel leadership

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March 9, 2022

TechGC chats with Mandy Legal, Vice President and General Counsel of Armorblox

Mandy Legal, Vice President and General Counsel of Armorblox speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

March 9, 2022

TechGC chats with May Liang, General Counsel of OpenConcept Systems, Inc.

May Liang, General Counsel of OpenConcept Systems, Inc. speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

March 9, 2022

TechGC chats with Gil Ott, Legal Consultant, Former Deputy General Counsel of TD Ameritrade

Gil Ott, Legal Consultant, Former Deputy General Counsel of TD Ameritrade speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

March 9, 2022

TechGC chats with Joseph Moreno, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer of SAP National Security Services

Joseph Moreno, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer of SAP National Security Services speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

March 2, 2022

TechGC chats with Daniel Doktori, Chief of Staff & General Counsel of Credly, Inc.

Daniel Doktori, Chief of Staff & General Counsel of Credly, Inc. speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

February 17, 2022

TechGC chats with Damien Atkins, Chief Legal Officer & Secretary of Aura Group, Inc.

Damien Atkins, Chief Legal Officer & Secretary of Aura Group, Inc. speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

February 17, 2022

TechGC chats with Allen Kuo, Director of Legal of Pivot Bio

Allen Kuo, Director of Legal of Pivot Bio speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

February 17, 2022

TechGC chats with Matt Spohn, General Counsel of Red Canary

Matt Spohn, General Counsel of Red Canary speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

February 17, 2022

TechGC chats with Manuel Martinez-Herrera, General Counsel & D&I Executive Sponsor of BetterCloud

Manuel Martinez-Herrera, General Counsel & D&I Executive Sponsor of BetterCloud speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

February 17, 2022

TechGC chats with David Lancelot, Former VP, Global Head of Legal of eBay Classifieds Group

David Lancelot, Former VP, Global Head of Legal of eBay Classifieds Group speaks with TechGC about career, work approach, and gives advice for up and coming General Counsels.

January 13, 2022

A Big Leap Into the Unknown: Career Risk and the Mission-Driven Path

Some career transitions are minor, some are transformative. How should one weigh the benefits of a new opportunity that bears great risk? In this fireside, we are with Adam Masser, Deputy General Counsel at Arcadia - a leading climatetech company - about his career path and taking risks to follow his passion for sustainability, technology and startups.

December 17, 2021

A New Year for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy & Three Legal Questions Tech Companies Should Consider

For years, technology companies of all sizes have set ambitious goals around cultivating a more diverse workforce. Immediately following the 2020 killing of George Floyd, companies and communities nationwide began to make more conscious efforts to address systemic racism and racial injustice. This is part of a broader series of social justice movements including #metoo, those supporting indigenous peoples and ongoing LGBTQ+ rights initiatives that have had a far-reaching impact on society and business. Small and mid-sized technology companies have been no exception, substantially increasing their focus on creating more diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) cultures.

December 3, 2021

Leaning in as the Startup GC

Transitioning from law firm life to a high-growth startup is rarely a smooth transition. There are inevitably surprises, curve-balls, and tough conversations that leave one hungry for guidance. In this Fireside chat, we sit down with Jeremy Muhlfelder, now the Lead Counsel at VRChat - a social virtual reality (VR) platform that allows users to easily build social VR content. We discuss his transition from Wilson Sonsini, the challenges of his new role, and advice he would give others making the same transition.

November 30, 2021

Transformative Governance Practices for Public Company Readiness

The booming 20s of the 21st century have already seen record IPOs. Prior to 2020, companies seemed to be fleeing the public markets, but the surge in SPACs that provided a faster and simpler path for many companies, helped drive the public market growth in an environment ripe with opportunity. Established companies that have weathered the storm, as well as newly formed companies born out of innovation, can take advantage of these positive market conditions.

October 15, 2021

Laura Belmont (GC of Civis Analytics) on Privacy, Legal Structure, & Career

As the level-head of the business, the GC promotes strategic influence while, at the same time, supporting crisis scenarios. A balanced approach is essential to the GC as the expectations placed upon them - integrity, leadership, knowledge - bear greater weight than many (perhaps most) roles. TechGC is all about sharing stories (war stories especially). Simply observing how others approach an issue can be great learning. In that spirit we’d like to share some perspective from Laura Belmont, General Counsel at Civis Analytics Privacy | Legal Team Structure | Career | Contracting

October 6, 2021

TechGC Executive Compensation Q&A with Gunderson Dettmer

Gunderson Dettmer executive compensation partners Liz Webb and Heather Aune participated in a closed TechGC Women's Collective dinner discussing financial wealth and stability, as well as methodologies for securing personal financial success. They provided guidance and insights on how executives and general counsels at high-growth companies should think about and approach executive compensation programs.

October 6, 2021

Building and Maintaining a Risk Assessment Program

Businesses of all sizes should prioritize developing and implementing a risk management program to protect themselves, directors, officers, and subsidiaries. Last month, Newfront’s John McCall joined panelists Andrea Gildea of Wise and Brittany DeGan of RewardStyle in TechGC’s “Building and Maintaining an Internal Risk Assessment Program” virtual panel.

September 29, 2021

3 Steps to A Strong Partnership Between Legal and Sales

Over the summer, TechGC hosted the 6th annual Fullstack General Counsels (GCs) Conference in San Francisco, a must-attend event for modern GCs that serve as strategic leaders at their organizations. TechGC is an independent, invitation-only, community platform for GCs of leading venture capital funds and high-growth technology companies.

September 6, 2021

The “New” Digital Healthcare Delivery System: How COVID-19 is Upending the Status Quo and Navigating a Dated Regulatory Paradigm

Although digital health solutions have long been a key area of strategic growth for the healthcare industry, the COVID-19 crisis accelerated what it means to deliver safe, effective, digitally-based care. As the United States shifts focus from short-term crisis response to longer term solutions, what does a digitally-driven healthcare industry look like, and how can healthcare entities maintain the highest standards of care and meet patient expectations, while constructively disrupting out-of-date practice patterns?

August 25, 2021

Solving for Board Diversity

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP was part of the recent TechGC 2021 Public Company Forum. Orrick's colleagues, Erin Connell and J.T. Ho, participated on a lively panel discussion about board diversity, and the challenges related to finding diverse, qualified board members with Elliot Mark, who serves as General Counsel of Everbridge, Inc. This post provides a summary of the key takeaways from this discussion.

June 23, 2021

The Important Choice of Counsel When Defending a D&O Claim

CAC Specialty was honored to be a part of the recent TechGC 2021 Public Company Forum. Our colleague, Jacalyn Kroupa, participated on a lively panel discussion about Directors and Officers Liability Insurance. One theme running through the presentation was the importance of choice of counsel when defending a D&O claim.

June 15, 2021

Effective Risk Management by Fostering a True Partnership between Legal and Security

We all know that, in this environment, data security remains top of mind for most organizations, and likely remains top of mind for most GCs. This article highlights key takeaways from a TechGC Panel discussion.

June 7, 2021

Best practices for Building a Remote Team Through International Hiring

On the lookout for a fantastic workforce, companies have increased hiring efforts internationally. This entails balancing between the impact and value of new global hires and varying compliance obstacles.At the same time, the pandemic has forced many employees to move homes, relocating to different jurisdictions, which adds a range of payroll, compliance, tax, and legal issues that companies need to tackle.

June 7, 2021

Considering a de-SPAC - Beware of Indemnification & Insurance at the SPAC

Many companies have taken advantage of the SPAC craze to advance their timelines for going public via a de-SPAC transaction, and they are moving quickly. While the pace may be slowing a bit, the target companies thus far have sometimes been left “holding the bag” to pay the SPACs legal costs i

March 30, 2021

How SPACs Stack Up: How we got here and where we’re going

SPACs were hardly a path of real consideration for tech companies in early 2020, and there had only been two direct listings to date. Flash forward to today and you can’t read the news without hearing about another SPAC. It’s incredible how fast this decades-old structure not only re-emerged as a viable option to consider when beginning the public offering process, but vaulted into the mainstream as an attractive path for many venture-backed companies to pursue.

February 16, 2021

Managing IP Risk & Contractual Indemnities

In a world of 1) increasingly smaller windows of time between periods of economic volatility; 2) a measurable shift over the past half century from tangible assets to intangible assets that now account for 85% of the value of the S&P 500; and 3) an increasing trend towards uncapped contractual indemnification between vendors and customers, it is clear that intellectual property infringement exposure for a technology company is a fast-evolving risk.

January 14, 2021

Accepting Imperfection: Scaling & Operating as GC

Startups naturally run mean and lean - which means startup GC’s have to work creatively to scale their legal operations. This, however, is counterintuitive to a law-firm trained lawyer who has been taught to make all their work to perfection. GC’s need efficient ways to manage and execute contracts while accepting the reality that perfection will not be achieved. This week we speak with Liz Benegas, GC of NetDocuments to share her experience in transitioning to a fast-paced GC role and her ways of hacking together unique legal operations systems.

December 18, 2020

Insurance - The GC's Role & What to Think About

The in-house general counsel, more often than not at young fast-growing companies, are unaware of the company’s insurance policy requirements (e.g.: timely notice, consent to counsel and rates), let alone what is even covered under the insurance policies, until the company and/or its directors & officers are in the throes of litigation, or being investigated by regulators, or both.

January 14, 2021

Expecting the Unexpected

GC’s are often placed in a position where they have to manage a certain level of unexpected chaos; it’s simply the nature of the job. This reality has been magnified for many GCs amidst the unforeseen events of 2020. However, it is the ideal opportunity for the GC to showcase their value and provide proper counsel during uncertain times and unexpected developments, of which there are no shortfalls in 2020.

December 3, 2020

Interviewing and Starting a new GC Role in a Virtual World

The global pandemic has certainly come with it’s business challenges, but how does it shape the way in house counsel identify, interview, and begin their new role? We sat down with Alastair Wood, GC of Rhino - a FinTech/Insurtech company where he started only a couple months ago. We discuss with Alastair his decision process in joining Rhino, what the virtual interview process was like, and now the challenges Alastair faces in being influential as GC in a remote company.

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