For Nancy Heinen, Apple Computer’s senior vice president and general counsel, the key to leadership is articulating the company’s vision and objectives, consistently and frequently. “It’s making sure that people understand what you are trying to accomplish as a business.”
Heinen, who joined Apple in September 1997 to work with her colleague, Steven Jobs, underscores that the team must understand its role and its importance.
“That takes frequent communication, because lawyers can sometimes get into the trenches and need to be continually aware of what the business objectives are.” With an undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a juris doctorate from the same university, Boalt Hall School of Law, Heinen found her interests and talents were focused on emerging companies and venture capital. Although Heinen’s roots were in private law practice in San Francisco and Palo Alto, she built an impressive resume with high-tech and entertainment companies.
Heinen made the leap to Tandem Computers Incorporated with great precision. “I was a corporate lawyer, so I had done my due diligence, and the company I picked was in the forefront culturally, a very interesting place, and an attractive opportunity.” Heinen served as group counsel and assistant secretary at Tandem Computers Incorporated, where she managed legal affairs for various operating divisions and was assistant secretary, advising the board of directors and preparing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure documents.
After Tandem Computers, Heinen was vice president, general counsel and secretary at NeXT Software, Inc., where she managed all legal matters and was a member of the senior management team and secretary to the board of directors. During her tenure at NeXT, Heinen served initially as the company’s sole in-house lawyer and went on to manage a four-member legal team. She was also responsible for preparing NeXT for its planned initial public offering and later served as counsel to NeXT when the company was acquired by Apple Computer.
“Seven months later, I came aboard as general counsel with Apple to help him [Steven Jobs] turn around Apple, which was struggling profoundly at the time. Apple had significant turn-around issues associated with restructuring and trying to get on a path to profitability. We had lost a couple billion dollars before I got here. Things were very difficult; the patient was on life support,” Heinen recalls.
Heinen says she inherited a staff with terrific experience, some of which was inordinately helpful and some of which had to be jettisoned because it was linked to Apple’s failed business strategies. “So the challenge was to cherish the experience they had, but to challenge the assumptions that they were operating under so they could embrace a different strategy we were putting in place for the company as part of its turnaround.”
With a legal staff of 50 lawyers and practice areas that cover the gamut from patent intellectual property law, licensing, supply agreements, and the technology development logistics and sales and marketing, Heinen is now helping the company with the expansion into the music business via digital media.
For Heinen, making it all work means setting priorities.
“Sometimes, work has higher priorities, and sometimes you have to flip that around when the family is a higher priority. Sometimes it is giving up things that you would like to do to make sure that the business needs are being met, and the family needs are being met. So it is a balance.”
Reflecting on the past, Heinen says, “I laugh because I came into a computer company and now I am an entertainment lawyer, and I have sat in the same chair for about eight years. The company has so many exciting initiatives in new areas that I am lucky to have a changing job, without ever having to change jobs. So the intellectual curiosity, and the desire to do things better and better, the constant challenges presented by Apple’s expanding businesses, keeps me going. It’s great to be part of the team that is bringing great products to customers.”
Heinen also doesn’t regret becoming corporate counsel. “I liked the variety of clients when I was in private practice. But what I love about in-house is the depth of experience and influence you have over the operations and direction of the company.”
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From the September/October 2005 issue of Diversity & The Bar®