Apr 13, 2023
On today's episode of The Founder's Sandbox, our host Brenda McCabe speaks with Lisa Greer Quateman – Corporate Board member, recently retired Attorney, and advocate of a greater presence for legal expertise on Boards of Directors. They speak about “Enhancing resilience and supporting good governance by tapping legal expertise“- how to incorporate legal practices into your startup to enhance the governing principles of your company.
You can contact Lisa or find out more about her at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-greer-quateman/
https://www.directorsandboards.com/articles/singlemy-board-journey-lisa-greer-quateman
00:04
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe. I own
and operate a consulting firm, Next Act Advisors. At Next Act
Advisors, I have a very simple mission. I want to assist.
00:33
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building scalable, well-governed
and resilient businesses. The Founders Sandbox is an additional
channel to feature founders, business owners, corporate directors
and professional service providers who like me want to use the
power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to
create change for a better world.
01:03
Through storytelling with a guest on topics around resilience, a
purpose-driven company and sustainable growth, my goal is to
provide a really fun sandbox environment where we can equip one
startup founder at a time to build a better world through great
corporate governance. So today my guest, I'm absolutely delighted,
is Lisa Greer-Quaitman, a corporate board member.
01:32
recently retired attorney and advocate of a greater presence for
legal expertise on boards of directors. Lisa and I are going to
talk about enhancing the resilience and supporting good governance
by tapping legal expertise. Thank you, Lisa, for joining me today
in the Founder Sandbox. Brenda, thank you. It's a pleasure to be
with you.
01:58
You know, I've known you ever since I landed in Los Angeles. We
both were members of Women Corporate Directors. At that time, you
were the LA managing partner of Pulsinelli and also a member, I'm
working on getting your corporate board skills kind of honed at the
National Association of Corporate Directors and the Pacific
Southwest Chapter. Today,
02:27
You're a board member of the National Association of Corporate
Directors, and you have chaired the marketing and communications
committee, of which I was a member. And we learned a lot about
social marketing and social media. Didn't we, Lisa? We did. We
really did, especially during the pandemic. Oh my goodness. So
kudos to you. And as a consequence of some of the work we did
there, I got my
02:53
I guess the goal to actually go ahead and launch a podcast. So
thank you for inspiring me. You know, eight years later, I've been
in LA. I am also thankful for you. I am certain that my listeners
who are many founders and business owners use legal expertise, but
I think you're gonna shed some more light on why it's important
from a corporate board expertise. I want you today,
03:22
to really demystify what it is that a board of directors does,
right? And now that you're a full board member on several companies
in the public sector, as well as private and nonprofit, how you do
that in terms of bringing in legal expertise is what this podcast
is about today. So thank you for coming in here and demystifying
what a corporate board is. Oh, great. I'll do my best.
03:51
Thank you. So tell me, I always like to start with a story. Where
did it all begin? You know, you chose to go to law school, although
you were considering doing an MBA. So why did you choose pursuing
illegal background? Well, I was I was a little confused at the
time, because I thought that if I went to law school, I would not
have to sell myself. That if I went to MBA school, I would have to
sell myself. So I also had
04:20
a grandfather who had acquired some real estate in his lifetime and
I was his first grandchild. And he told me in no uncertain terms
that I would eventually need to be responsible for taking care of
this real estate. And I did not want to be taken advantage of in
the market. I wanted to learn my way around. So for those reasons,
I went to law school. I then discovered that you have to sell
yourself if you want to have a law practice. So that was where I
got that wrong.
04:49
I guess I did graduate to running marketing and communications for
the NACD chapter. So somewhere along the way, I figured out how to
make rain as they say. Fantastic. So in addition to running the
family real estate business and lawyering, you often describe your
own entrepreneurial experience, right? So you, after law school,
worked for a large law firm. You were on the East coast and
eventually came here to the West coast. And at one point,
05:19
stage you decided to go out on your own. Tell us about your
entrepreneurial experience. You know, it was fantastic. I really, I
can relate to these founders and founders were among my most
favorite clients along the way. I was in a big law firm and I've
been, I was practicing for long enough that back when I was getting
started, it was still quote unquote
05:48
women attorneys. And at the time it was okay for a client to tell a
senior partner in a law firm he didn't want a woman working on his
case or working on his account or something like that. So for me, I
decided to sort of jump off the diving board out of the large firm
environment and practice on my own for a little while and see how
that would go. And it was eye opening because the clients that came
with me did not discriminate against women. They wanted me for
my
06:16
experience and expertise. So I ended up practicing on my own and
building a boutique law firm over a long period of time before
eventually merging back into a large national firm for a new
entrepreneurial opportunity to open a Los Angeles, California
office for a national law firm that had no presence there and to
become the managing partner there. So the entrepreneurial bug can
be in you whether you're in a small environment or a big
environment. I guess that's what you call
06:45
And I know that you talked about when making that decision to
actually go to a larger national firm and bring it to the West
Coast because it didn't have a presence, you did that also to
create opportunities for partners, right? So it was building a
structure for those members of the practice to have a career path,
which is, I think, a sign of purpose-driven organization.
07:15
back to Oh, that's well put. Yes, amazing. Amazing what you did.
Well, while you were lawyering and the managing partner for
personnel here in Los Angeles, you got the urge and the interest to
develop your own path for board positions, starting with
nonprofits. And then you
07:43
joined and participated in the National Association of Corporate
Directors opportunities for education as well as giving back. Today
you're sitting on the board of the National Association of
Corporate Directors, Pacific Southwest. How did you share yourself
or share, how did you position yourself? Because oftentimes general
counsels or lawyers just aren't present as full board members,
right?
08:09
Oftentimes you're the general counsel, you are the secretary of the
board, but how did you position yourself for full board
membership?
08:21
There's a preconception in some quarters about lawyers on boards.
Okay, don't put a lawyer on the board, the lawyer on the board is
going to interfere with the work of the corporate counselor, the
general counselor, second guess, the general counsel. Okay, or
another another myth is the lawyer on the board is going to poo poo
every good idea, won't take any risks at all has no entrepreneurial
spirit. So in my case,
08:49
And I learned this through one of your other podcast guests. In
fact, be sure to highlight your business experience and your
business acumen and demonstrate that you can build a business. So
in my case, I had run the law firms. I had been running the real
estate business. And so I attempted to highlight that experience as
an example of the business building expertise that I could bring
into the boardroom.
09:19
layered with the acumen that you get from being a lawyer. And guess
what? On all the boards where I serve, they're thrilled to have a
lawyer in the boardroom now. And they obviously are not the ones
who said we can't have one. And you see more and more people with
legal expertise in boardrooms now because they understand not
eliminating risk, but managing risk.
09:45
You know, many of my listeners are founders, right? So I love that
shout out you made that you actually some of your favorite clients
are founders and business owners. They have an early stage advisory
boards, right? And they use professional service firms, legal
firms. I published a post in LinkedIn and on my website, www.
10:15
Why good governance starts early. And I provide there five crucial
steps to board formation. How can you make that a bit, I guess I
provide a real case scenario of some of your activity in the
boardroom, right? To show not only the legal expertise, but looking
for strategic opportunities, with some of the regulation and the
like.
10:43
You're highlighting a very important issue. And I just want to
reinforce what you said about the post that you did on LinkedIn. I
read it and I thought it's really a must read for founders because
you're covering so many important issues. And in my case, because
as you mentioned, I retired out of law practice. I particularly
liked...
11:05
your statement that silver haired people can be founders silver
bullets. So let's, let's keep that as a tagline for as long as we
can, even though my hair, I don't know, you can look here. It's a
podcast, but it's not that silver yet, but we're trying. So in my
LinkedIn article, among the five crucial steps, I talk about legal
documents, can you embellish beyond the legal documents for a
founder?
11:33
other areas of expertise that founders need to look at? Well, you
highlighted some legal documents that founders wouldn't necessarily
think about, and lawyers might not necessarily think about. So I
really do commend your listeners to listen to your sandbox all the
time and to read that particular LinkedIn post. The expertise that
you wanna bring into your boardroom, I think should be varied.
12:03
fantastic because of what we talked about in terms of a knowledge
of a regulatory landscape and so forth. But the entrepreneurial
side, the finance side, the business side, the marketing side, try
to populate that early boardroom with all of that expertise. And I
think you can then build a strong foundation for growth. Thank you.
You know, what else? So what other guidance?
12:33
Could you provide when a company has moved from early stage to
growth stage and they're into a potential eventual transaction? I
loved your term. I think you called it legal fluff and fold. Can
you provide some examples of the holistic view of corporate
governance when you're working towards an eventual transaction?
What have you seen in boardrooms? And what have you seen actually
with clients of your own?
13:05
I saw loyalty to the, for example, the attorneys who helped
incorporate a business and may not have grown with the business so
that when the company came to a transaction stage, some big funding
or M&A merger and acquisition activity, those attorneys weren't
necessarily
13:34
attorneys who practice in that arena all the time. So be loyal to
your advisors, but also be open-minded to what the business really
needs and see if you can get folks to work well together. I used to
really enjoy, especially once I was a big firm partner again,
working with the smaller law firms, collaborating for the best
result for these founders.
14:03
but also bringing in the specialized expertise that becomes
necessary. You need ERISA people, you need labor people, you need
all kinds of specialty help sometimes, Foreign Corrupt Practices
Act, if you're selling overseas, all kinds of things like that,
that the smaller professional advisors might not provide. So I
think that is an important component for the strong foundation that
you need before these transactions. The other is to anticipate
14:32
the due diligence requirements of your investors or of the company
across the table. Be ready for that. The legal fluff and fold that
I referenced is really just a matter of, it's not a complete, you
know, strip all the sheets off and start over and buy new bedding.
It's really just make sure that things are in order. Take a look
with the eye of the investor. What are they going to want? Ask your
advisors.
15:02
What is the due diligence checklist? What will I need to be ready
for? How do I prepare my staff? How best to communicate with the
staff about what these people are gonna want? And you'll be shocked
to find that, oops, somebody forgot to do a filing with the
secretary of state. Let's get that cleaned up. Let's talk through
this lawsuit. What is our real exposure? How do we communicate
effectively about this so that we're not concealing information, et
cetera. So,
15:32
anticipating and being ready and having dry runs. I love it. Those
are a lot of nuggets, nuts and bolts on good legal expertise,
right? Even in a small and growing company. You know, I like to
give an opportunity to my guests to let my listeners know how to
contact you or follow you. You're very active in LinkedIn.
16:00
And you had a recent interview that I actually enjoyed reading. And
the directors and boards.com, they had a, the board journey of
lease agree equipment. So it's another resource for my listeners to
get to know lease agree equipment and what you're doing to bring
legal expertise into the corporate boardroom. So how do my
listeners contact you?
16:28
your LinkedIn? What is your LinkedIn profile? Oh, it's it's just my
name. So that's the hard part is spelling the name, right? Or they
can get to me on Gmail. It's Lisa Quateman, L Quateman, Q, U, A, T,
E, M, A, N. Excellent. So before we go, Lisa, I do like to bring my
guests back to what I do at NextAct Advisors. I work with
16:57
founders and company owners on topics around resilience, on purpose
driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And it always is
delightful for me because I ask my guests, like I'm gonna ask you,
what does resilience mean to you? Because nobody has the same
perception. It's amazing because there's nuggets to, for the
founders on what is resilience for you as a lawyer. I think.
17:24
I think resilience is building long term staying power, by being
flexible and by being willing to be a lifelong learner. Thank you.
And what does purpose driven enterprise mean to you?
17:40
I think a purpose driven enterprise has developed its mission and
identified its goals and tactics for achieving those goals. And
it's defined its mission by evaluating the needs, honestly, of its
stakeholders, since a company's purpose is to meet those needs.
What about sustainable growth? What does that mean to you? Well,
I'm a back to basics person on sustainable growth. And for me, that
means disciplined cash management.
18:10
and the avoidance of over leveraging or fancy accounting or revenue
recognition tricks. Okay, last and final question, Lisa, did you
have fun in the sandbox today? Well, I did pretty much but I see
sand in my toes and I think it's kind of wrecking my pedicure. I
love it because I think through having fun.
18:36
one becomes very creative and in the founder story and the founder
journey, you do need to have your creativity. And I want to thank
you for joining me today and bringing in your legal expertise and
why it's important to have legal expertise in the boardroom at any
stage in a founder's journey. Thank you and have a wonderful rest
of your day. Thank you for those.
19:05
nuggets today. I want to also do a shout out this month of March is
actually Women History Month. Lisa and three other women are
featured in the founders sandbox as well as on my website, there
are blogs around women leadership. And today, the day we're
recording is actually Women's International Day. So thank you for
joining me.
19:33
And I encourage my listeners to read this article in LinkedIn on
Lisa Greer Quatman's single board journey. The podcast, Enhancing
Resilience and Supporting Good Governance by Tapping Legal
Expertise will be available on wherever you listen to your podcast.
Thank you and signing off for today.