Samantha McGonigle – Common counsel, Hg
Yr of qualification: 2003Hogan Lovells, 2001-06Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 2006-19Farview Fairness Companions, 2019-24Paul Hastings, 2023-24Hg, 2024-present
What do you most get pleasure from about working in PE?
Personal fairness is extremely various and dynamic. Even inside a really specialist agency like Hg, which focuses solely on software program and companies companies, the chance to have interaction with completely different enterprise fashions and segments is excitingly broad.
Being a lawyer within the personal fairness trade additionally presents the chance to use industrial judgement to complicated authorized issues and be on the reducing fringe of market developments. I like the mental problem and the adrenaline of getting a transaction achieved, however I additionally benefit from the alternative to construct relationships inside our portfolio firms and assist them as they develop their companies.
Why did you resolve to modify from personal apply to in-house? And what are the largest variations?
My profession has been non-linear. Having been a associate in personal apply earlier than co-founding a development fairness funding agency, I then returned to being a associate in personal apply earlier than becoming a member of Hg – so I really made the change twice! I learnt that I thrive in a enterprise setting which is fast-paced and the place I can work intently and collaboratively with the opposite companions to ship constructive outcomes. Working inside Hg not solely permits me and my workforce members to be an integral a part of the funding groups otherwise from exterior advisers, it additionally affords me the chance to be a part of strategic decision-making at a agency stage
You co-founded your personal funding agency…what are the teachings you’ve taken from that to your function as GC at Hg?
Co-founding an funding agency was the only largest studying curve of my profession. I learnt the foundational constructing blocks of how a enterprise usually, and an funding agency extra particularly, operates. I additionally learnt to not be afraid of issues that I hadn’t skilled earlier than, or challenges that I used to be dealing with for the primary time. I turned adept at making judgement calls at tempo on the most effective data out there and iterating on choices as reality patterns modified (significantly by means of Covid), which taught me to all the time anticipate the surprising. Most significantly, I learnt the ability of a very good community and that in the event you spend money on serving to individuals and maintaining in contact with them, the rewards far outweigh the trouble of doing so.
What’s the largest problem as a PE GC?
The most important problem of being the GC of a non-public fairness agency is the tempo and scale of change. The final 10 years have seen unimaginable evolution and development within the personal fairness trade – Hg itself has reworked from a UK mid-market PE agency to a number one investor in European and transatlantic software program and companies companies – and the following ten years have the potential to exceed that. A fantastic GC is on the very coronary heart of serving to a non-public fairness agency navigate that evolution and development – whether or not within the deployment and return of capital or in assessing agency alternative and threat.
Would you advocate a profession as an in-house PE lawyer? Why?
Sure – for all the causes above! In the correct agency with a extremely collaborative and constructive tradition like Hg, it may be an extremely stimulating and rewarding job.
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