Introduction: 0:00

• Introducing Dan Haley, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Guild, former SVP and GC at Sprinklr, and former Chief Legal and Administrative officer at Athenahealth.
• Starting your career in politics under former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Charlie Baker and moving on to partner at McDermott Will and Emery. 
• Overcoming two bouts with testicular cancer and raising money for global cancer research in a yearly two-week, two-hundred-mile cycling fundraiser.

Balancing high-stress jobs with cancer treatment: 9:21

• Enduring surgery and radiation treatments while working full time and studying for the bar.
• Finding that you are at your best when you are training for an athletic competition.
• Being thankful for learning how to deliberately manage your time.

Building a reputation as a zen lawyer: 12:23

• Accepting valuable feedback from your CEO about intensity and condescension.
• Adapting a philosophy that emphasized equanimity. 
• Receiving compliments about kindness and friendliness in your legal approach.
• Recognizing the gift of feedback and regularly soliciting it from your manager.

Maintaining a positive attitude and setting a tone within the GC role: 18:05

• Working with companies that want a GC who possesses a personality that matches their culture.
• Being chosen for the role at Sprinklr because he was wearing a funny shirt in the interview.
• Taking on cultural leadership positions at three different companies.
• Making yourself approachable but not soft as you tackle core legal functions.

Managing CEO transitions in a time of crisis: 23:16

• Using the innate authority of being a lawyer to instill calm in your staff.
• Avoid jumps to conclusions and offering worst-case scenarios.
• Focusing on the things that you know to be true.

Enduring a hostile takeover from Elliott Management at Athenahealth: 27:31

• Receiving word from the “doomsday investor” that they have purchased your stock.
• Leading your team through an eighteen-month saga of intense stress and emotion.
• Projecting an air of normalcy while managing a destructive and highly confidential crisis.

Facilitating the CEO transition at Athenahealth: 32:52

• Mediating corporate governance, human relationships and human emotions as the decision is made to search for a new CEO.
• Convincing your investors not to bring in outside counsel to manage the transition process.

Facilitating the CEO transition at Guild: 37:22

• Staying strong after the CEO and founder suffers a life-changing medical emergency.
• Understanding that no one in an organization is irreplaceable.
• Recognizing when a company needs a founder to lead and when it needs an administrator.

Book recommendations: 46:14

• The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by  Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford 

What you wish you’d known as a young lawyer: 50:13  

• Unlearning lessons from law school and law firms to be an effective in-house lawyer.
• Never offering worst-case scenarios as advice.