Company Description: Knight Ridder is a communications company primarily engaged in newspaper and Internet publishing. The second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, it owns 32 dailies and operates the Real Cities network of 55 regional websites.
Education: B.A., University of California, Davis
J.D., Santa Clara University School of Law
Department Size: 12
Immediate Prior Position: Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Liberate Technologies
1. What is the best career advice you have received?
Based on my years in private practice, I’ve come to the conclusion that to make partner, it was necessary not only to develop and mature in the firm, but also to act like a partner. This means that you should put yourself in the shoes of the partner and operate with the mindset and attitude of a partner. With this approach, you convince others of your capabilities, showing that you deserve to be a partner. Your future partners will then say that you do what they do. The absolute wrong perspective is taking the attitude of us—the associates —versus them—the partners.
2. Please describe a defining moment critical to your success.
When I was in private practice, I had the opportunity twice to acquire incremental leaps in experience. With one client, I developed a relationship that allowed me to learn by observing his approach to business. It was a start-up company that became very successful, and was eventually acquired by Microsoft. I learned how entrepreneurs solve problems and how they built value in an enterprise through aggressive intellectual property strategies.
In another case, I left private practice to become general counsel for an emerging high tech company. During those 18 months, we completed a tough final private round of financing with strategic investors, went public in a very successful IPO, conducted an even more successful follow-up secondary offering, and then acquired two companies in our space—all at the same time while handling the licensing deals with our customers that helped build our business. I think I expended more energy than in any period of my life. But I learned quite a bit about how strategic business decisions are made in an emerging company, and it was an incredible experience.
3. Please describe your biggest professional challenge.
As one of two attorneys in the legal department of the high tech company I mentioned, I faced tremendous challenges because we had limited resources. But I always promised to my colleagues on the management team that we would exceed their expectations. Because of the volume of successful deals that we handled, no deal, no matter how difficult or impossible it first appeared, was out of the question.
We felt almost invincible, carried forward by the momentum of closing one deal and then moving immediately on to the next one. We handled unbelievable deal flow. The sense of what we were capable of accomplishing seemed to feed on ourselves, and we accomplished everything that we set out to do. I stayed up many nights. I used to tell people that a short day was when I left the office on the same day that I came.
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From the December 2001 issue of Diversity & The Bar®