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With the new year comes the planning of the next round of initial public offerings.

Top lawyers at companies thought to be planning an IPO in the near future will be expected to play an integral role in most of these transactions. Many of these attorneys will be leading IPOs for the first time in their careers.

But being a first-timer, even to a process as complex and high stakes as an initial public offering, seems to be just fine in the legal department world, especially when skilled outside counsel are involved.

The backgrounds of the in-house attorneys at companies rumored to be going public soon are varied, an analysis from Corporate Counsel done through interviews and using the lawyers' bios and LinkedIn profiles shows. And as many lawyers who have been through the process before have recognized, for a GC, there is not any one skill set that is necessary to help a company go public.  

Who's Next and Who's In Charge?

Shriram Bhashyam, general counsel and co-founder of EquityZen, a New York startup that allows investors to buy stock in private companies, has worked with and analyzed many companies in their pre-IPO stages.

In Bhashyam's experience, “there's no one profile a company should look for in a GC who will successfully take them public.” But he noted that strong communication, leadership and organizational skills matter.

“Major factors to consider are the type of business and growth strategy of the company,” he said. “A company in a heavily regulated space may want a GC who is duly expertized to deal with those challenges. Or, if the company's growth will be driven from software licensing and major partnerships related to those, someone with a background in those deals may be the way to go.”

One top lawyer at a company expected to IPO in the next few years is Kristin Sverchek at ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. Sverchek has yet to work for a public company, but in a November interview, she said that if and when the San Francisco-based company goes public, she'll be ready. She also indicated the company would add more securities experts, post-public offering.

“We've been through a number of private rounds of financing since I joined the company, so all in all, I think we're ready to flip the switch on that when and if we think it makes sense,” she said. “We are very used to being diligence- and audit-ready at a moment's notice.”

Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft's biggest competitor, is expected to go public in the near future as well. In late August, company CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told staff he was planning for an IPO in the next 18 to 36 months, though the company did not reply to request for comment on a potential public offering. Tony West, newly minted chief legal officer of the ride-hailing company, would be tasked with overseeing the legal department's involvement in any IPO plans. 

Although West has not yet served as the top lawyer for a company going public, he did lead a legal department with roughly 450 lawyers in more than 200 countries in his last job at PepsiCo Inc.

Then there's Jonathan Truppman at Casper Sleep Inc. The bed-in-a-box company, most recently valued at $750 million, appears on several lists of companies expected to be planning an IPO soon. Before joining Casper in 2015, the 32-year-old general counsel had no previous in-house experience but has acclimated quickly, working on major deals such as a $170 million funding round for Casper.

And it won't come as a surprise if home-sharing company Airbnb Inc. goes public soon. Its two top lawyers—CLO Belinda Johnson and general counsel Rob Chesnut—have worked on IPOs before. Johnson, who did not respond for comment, served as general counsel for Broadcast.com Inc. when the company went public in 1998.

Chesnut was general counsel at Chegg Inc. from 2010 to 2016 and oversaw the education company's IPO in 2013. He declined to comment on if and when Airbnb plans to go public.

Software company Apttus Corp.'s chief legal officer Margo Smith is another in-house lawyer with experience overseeing an IPO. She worked on “numerous IPOs” during the decade she worked as an attorney with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and she worked closely on the 2006 IPO of semiconductor testing company Verigy when she was deputy GC. 

“In my view, a company looking to go public does not necessarily need a GC who has been through an IPO before, though it is helpful,” Smith said. ”An IPO is a financing transaction for the company. What is far more important is having a general counsel with public company experience, who knows the ins and outs of life as a public company. And it goes without saying that being a problem-solver and good business partner is paramount.”

Another highly anticipated IPO could come from music streaming service Spotify. The company's legal department is led by Horacio Gutierrez. If and when Spotify goes public, Gutierrez has a lot of public company experience to draw upon with his 17 years as a lawyer at Microsoft. He declined to comment on any IPO plans for Spotify but noted he has “significant corporate securities experience” from his time in private practice and from his tenure with a Latin American investment bank. 

Credit Karma Inc., which offers free credit reports and credit monitoring, appointed Susannah Stroud Wright as general counsel for the company. The SolarCity alum joined Credit Karma in June, weeks before the company's CEO Kenneth Lin publicly announced the company's $500 million annual revenue during a fintech event in New York, which many took as a sign the company won't stay private for long. Wright did not respond to request for comment.

Other GCs at companies rumored to be considering S-1s with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are: finance startup Betterment's Ben Alden, music app maker Smule Inc.'s Sharon Segev, software company Palantir Technologies' general counsel (or “legal ninja”) Matt Long, Dropbox's Bart Volkmer, shared office space company WeWork Inc.'s Peter Greenspan and SoFi's Robert Lavet. Attorneys from these companies did not respond to request for comment.

How to Win at the IPO Game

With all of the first-time IPOs for this group of GCs, reliance on outside firms will be a must.

Adam Rosman, general counsel for First Data Corp., oversaw the company's IPO in 2015, the biggest IPO of the year. (The Atlanta-based payments company was privately held for nearly a decade after being traded on the public markets once before.) 

He said that while he played an important role, selecting the right outside counsel is critical. First Data relied heavily on lawyers at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

“You need a firm that has a bunch of [IPOs] under their belt, because it's so important to get everything right,” Rosman said. “Experience matters.”

During preparation for the public offering, Rosman said he and his legal department “stayed pretty focused on making sure the business kept running and improving. That was a clear directive.”

Rosman's biggest advice for GCs working towards IPOs is to “deeply understand the business so you can develop the narrative of the story of the company,” because that narrative will be repeated to investors and needs to be written in the S-1 and legal documents in a clear way. “People who read it are relying on that. That at the core is why people are buying the stock.”

EquityZen's Bhashyam added, “As much as it's a big milestone [for a company to go public], it's important to hire for long-term management of the legal function as much as for successfully taking a company public.”