Introduction: 0:00
- Introducing Dan Haley, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Guild, former SVP and GC at Sprinklr, and former Chief Legal and Administrative officer at Athenahealth.
- Starting your career in politics under former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Charlie Baker and moving on to partner at McDermott Will and Emery.
- Overcoming two bouts with testicular cancer and raising money for global cancer research in a yearly two-week, two-hundred-mile cycling fundraiser.
Balancing high-stress jobs with cancer treatment: 9:21
- Enduring surgery and radiation treatments while working full time and studying for the bar.
- Finding that you are at your best when you are training for an athletic competition.
- Being thankful for learning how to deliberately manage your time.
Building a reputation as a zen lawyer: 12:23
- Accepting valuable feedback from your CEO about intensity and condescension.
- Adapting a philosophy that emphasized equanimity.
- Receiving compliments about kindness and friendliness in your legal approach.
- Recognizing the gift of feedback and regularly soliciting it from your manager.
Maintaining a positive attitude and setting a tone within the GC role: 18:05
- Working with companies that want a GC who possesses a personality that matches their culture.
- Being chosen for the role at Sprinklr because he was wearing a funny shirt in the interview.
- Taking on cultural leadership positions at three different companies.
- Making yourself approachable but not soft as you tackle core legal functions.
Managing CEO transitions in a time of crisis: 23:16
- Using the innate authority of being a lawyer to instill calm in your staff.
- Avoid jumps to conclusions and offering worst-case scenarios.
- Focusing on the things that you know to be true.
Enduring a hostile takeover from Elliott Management at Athenahealth: 27:31
- Receiving word from the “doomsday investor” that they have purchased your stock.
- Leading your team through an eighteen-month saga of intense stress and emotion.
- Projecting an air of normalcy while managing a destructive and highly confidential crisis.
Facilitating the CEO transition at Athenahealth: 32:52
- Mediating corporate governance, human relationships and human emotions as the decision is made to search for a new CEO.
- Convincing your investors not to bring in outside counsel to manage the transition process.
Facilitating the CEO transition at Guild: 37:22
- Staying strong after the CEO and founder suffers a life-changing medical emergency.
- Understanding that no one in an organization is irreplaceable.
- Recognizing when a company needs a founder to lead and when it needs an administrator.
Book recommendations: 46:14
- The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
What you wish you’d known as a young lawyer: 50:13
- Unlearning lessons from law school and law firms to be an effective in-house lawyer.
- Never offering worst-case scenarios as advice.