What does a general manager role involve? How do you establish your company's first international office? And what skills from lawyering can you draw on to do it well? Join Manuel Martinez-Herrera, General Manager and General Counsel at BetterCloud, as he shares his journey from law school in Spain to offices in Argentina and the U.S., to earning an LL.M at Harvard, jumping from big law to in-house counsel, moving beyond the GC role, and opening his company's first office in Mexico...

Have you ever considered quitting your job outright because you felt like you were being pulled farther and farther away from your calling? And then finding your way back through a career change that's very different? Join Jasmine Singh, former Chief Legal and People Officer at Binti, as she shares lessons she learned after taking time away from the legal profession about how to recalibrate your career to align with your principles and passions, and how a year instructing a spin class landed...

What is the transition like from government service to a C-suite leadership role at a cutting edge tech company? How are regulators thinking about crypto and other financial innovations? And is public service something that's still inspiring or something that we ought to aspire to? Join Heath Tarbert, Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs at Circle, as he draws on his extensive and prodigious career in public service–serving as Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commision,...

What lessons from tennis can you apply to your day-to-day life? How do you build a career as a dealmaker working with high-profile talent? How has the entertainment industry, and what it needs from its lawyers, changed over the years? Join Peter Steckelman, Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at the Tennis Channel, as he shares stories from his uniquely wide-ranging career in entertainment law, including working in-house work at Disney, Fox Entertainment, Warner Brothers,...

Do general counsels need to care about geopolitics? Is now the right time to start a legal tech company? And should you consider growing your team in a place other than Silicon Valley, like Rwanda? Join Sean West, Co-Founder at Hence Technologies and writer at Geolegal.substack.com, as he explains how he became a geopolitical forecaster for corporations and hedge funds at Eurasia Group, then chose to co-found a tech company that brings geopolitical insights to general counsels and executives...

As top legal leaders across a variety of industries, our podcast guests are no strangers to building teams from scratch and scaling them to adapt to the needs of a rapidly expanding business.   Listen as we share some of our favorite words of advice from past episodes about hiring and growing elite legal teams from some of the most seasoned general counsels and executives working today. Read detailed summary:  https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-64    Topics: You're starting a...

How can the general counsel become a true partner to the executive team? How about in the context of a public company? How can the general counsel ensure that that same can-do attitude that they bring to the table pervades the rest of their legal team? Join Matt Campobasso, General Counsel at Enfusion, as he shares stories and lessons from his unique legal career: starting as a prosecutor outside of Chicago, litigating at a firm for more than a decade and becoming partner, then transitioning...

How can corporate leaders make compliance training entertaining enough that their employees will pay attention? How do you know if compliance training is effective? What has a founder in this space learned about building for and selling to HR and legal? Join Roxanne Petraeus, Co-Founder and CEO of Ethena, as she discusses how her company is changing compliance training by making it more personalised, effective, role-based, and specific to scenarios happening in her clients' companies....

What skill set should the Chief of Staff to a Chief Legal Officer of a major international corporation need? How do you build trust with a Chief Operating Officer? How do you cultivate the right culture with a large legal and compliance team? Join Zoe McMahon, Chief of Staff, VP of Legal Strategy and Operations at HP, as she shares stories and lessons from her thirty-year career at the world's second largest computer manufacturer. Starting her career in environmental responsibility, Zoe has...

Where's the intersection in a career as a creative and as a lawyer? What stories would you tell if you were writing a play about your career in startup law? How do you go and convince some accomplished actors to sign up and perform it off-broadway?   Join Sarah Feingold, the legal expert and playwright behind Dirty Legal Secrets: Based on True Startups—running Off-Broadway this October in New York City—as she shares her experience collecting and staging anonymous stories from startup lawyers...

How do you turn your passion for sports into a career? What does it take to advise pro athletes and celebrities on investments and deals? And how can you start to angel invest yourself? Sunjay Mathews, investor, advisor, and dealmaker in the sports and media sector, was able to make the leap from in-house counsel at FanDuel and DAZN, the biggest names in sports betting and streaming, into a legal and business consulting powerhouse. With his deep understanding of the complex (and often...

How should General Counsel and legal teams be leveraging generative AI? How do you get started on your AI journey and what mistakes should you avoid? Where is the AI revolution heading? Join Cecilia Ziniti, Founder and CEO of GC AI, as she discusses how and why she made the leap from working as a corporate lawyer to creating a generative AI product specifically designed for in-house counsel. Find out how her years leading legal for AI-powered tech companies like Replit, Anki, and Cruise (and...

Join Jules Polonetsky, CEO and Founder of the Future of Privacy Forum, as he shares lessons he learned from the front lines of ad tech starting in the early 1990s. Starting his career in politics as a New York assemblyman and working his way into consumer protection-focused public roles, he became one of the first chief privacy officers in the tech industry at companies like DoubleClick and AOL at a crucial moment in the history of online privacy. Now his think tank connects policymakers with...

Can playing cards teach you to be a better lawyer? How do you make it in Silicon Valley without the traditional big law firm experience? And how do you make the jump to public company general counsel? Join Andrew Woods, General Counsel at PubMatic, as he discusses the unique path he forged from professional poker player to legal star. From founding a think tank at Harvard focused on poker and law to breaking into tech and privacy as Director of Legal and Associate Counsel at Twitter, Andrew...

How do you make the leap from lawyer to founder? How do you craft the perfect pitch? What does it take to fundraise effectively? And how far will your legal know-how take you when you're accountable for every function in the business? Join Aaron Gregory, Co-founder and CEO of Upwardli, as he shares his journey from general counsel to start-up leader. Starting his career in the highly regulated telecom and fintech industries, Aaron relied on lessons he learned while earning his JD-MBA to...

How can C-suite leaders take on challenging political issues that affect their company? How do you pursue a path of professional growth at a company over the course of a decade? What's required for taking on wide-ranging responsibilities at the executive level? Join Kristin Sverchek, President of Lyft, as she discusses how she joined a small start-up as their first general counsel and grew with it as it transformed into a global ride-sharing powerhouse with a multi-billion dollar...

What do you need to know if you're ready to launch a government affairs strategy? How do you find the right lobbyist? And how has lobbying for tech companies changed over the last decade? Join Matt Tanielian, Co-founder of Franklin Square Group, a bipartisan government relations, as he shares key insights from his decades of experience advocating for tech companies and bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and Washington. D.C. From advising senators on foundation internet legislation like...

How do you raise nine figures in financing in twelve hours as the first Twitter-fueled bank run is happening around you and you feel the pressure of hundreds and thousands of employees depending on your ability to finish the deal so their paychecks clear? Join Vanessa Wu, GC at Rippling, as she relives the moment her company overcame the disastrous collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and pulled through some lightning-fast deals to protect the income of the clients whose paychecks depend on them....

What do you need to know if you're considering taking on the people function? What's the difference between a chief people officer and a CHRO? And are GCs well-positioned to take on both of these roles simultaneously? Rachel Olchowka, Former Chief People Officer and General Counsel at Fetch and current Chief Administrative Officer at Prizm Insurance, had no hesitations when she volunteered to operate a complex, metrics-driven people function in addition to her responsibilities leading...

How do you help CEOs transition out of the business? How do you project calm in a time of crisis? Can you draw on the experience of beating cancer twice as you navigate the challenges of executive leadership?   Dan Haley, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Guild, has led a career spanning the world of local Massachusetts politics, leading legal at companies like Sprinklr, and Athenahealth, enduring cancer treatments while holding high-stress leadership positions, and becoming known...

How is AI going to change the practice of law? How is one of the most forward looking law firms adapting? And will the billable hour go away?   Joe Green, Chief Innovation Officer at Gunderson Dettmer and Cofounder & Director of the Open Cap Table Coalition, steered a law career starting at major Wall Street firm Simpson Thacher towards the worlds of tech and product management, with stop-offs in academia and legal publishing along the way. Ultimately, he found that his legal mindset...

How do you build a legal and business career from a passion for aviation? What is the transition like from the GC role to that of CEO? And what is it like to run an airline?   Ben Klein, CEO and First Officer at Aero, was able to combine his dedication to legal work with his lifelong love of flying. Starting off at big law firms like Davis Polk & Wardwell, he successfully transitioned into aviation law after founding his own firm, then took on GC roles at autonomous helicopter start-up...

How do you build trust with investors who tap you for the CEO role? How do you prepare yourself to lead companies through some of their toughest moments, including bankruptcy, and guide other companies through their transformations as a board member? Chelsea Grayson, managing partner of corporate restructuring at Pivot > and former CEO and board member of brands like American Apparel, True Religion, and Spark Networks, has steered many ships through rough waters, including post-chapter 11...

Read detailed summary:  https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-46 Topics: Introduction: 0:00 Deanna Papedis on adopting a strategic mindset and keeping your eye on the big picture: 1:05 Hardeep Singh on congratulating yourself when you reach a career milestone: 2:10 Vineet Shahani on dealing with career lows and leaning on your communication skills: 3:50 Nguyễn Vu on establishing strong relationships with people who can move the needle on your career: 6:09 Sagi Eliyahu on knowing when the...