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Going Beyond the GC Role: COO Genessa Stout on Organic Growth
143 Plays1 year ago
“How do I expand my scope of work as a GC or in-house lawyer?”
The in-house legal industry is increasingly seeing GCs step up to the role of COO, CFO, head of people functions, and more. In fact, expanding your role to cross-functional leadership positions has become an important part of growth for senior legal executives.
In episode 9 of The Abstract, we talk to one such leader, who grew her career from a receptionist at a law firm to now the Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel at Tally — Genessa Stout.
We discuss:
— how she grew into this role organically and came to head functions like finance and HR,
— her consumer-centric approach to lawyering,
— how she builds trust and culture within the business and her team, and more.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-9
Topics:
Introduction: 00:00
From rural roots to plaintiff-side law at Hagens Berman to CFPB: 01:14
Early days at CFPB: 05:41
Transitioning from CFPB to in-house at PayPal: 08:30
From PayPal to a multidimensional leadership at Tally: 13:42
Fostering trust and heading people and operations functions at Tally: 16:45
Navigating non-legal leadership roles and learning curves in other functions: 19:14
Building culture as a GC and a COO: 23:30
Transitioning from GC to different business leadership roles: 27:07
Advice to young attorneys: 30:45
The evolving role of the GC: 33:04
A book recommendation and insight into what keeps Genessa motivated: 35:00
Connect with us:
Genessa Stout - https://www.linkedin.com/in/genessastout
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading CLM platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Abstract' Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome listeners to this episode of The Abstract. My name is
Introducing Janessa Stout and Tally's Achievements
00:00:12
Speaker
Tyler Finn. I lead community for Spotdraft, and I am really excited to be sitting today with Janessa Stout, the COO and general counsel of Tally. Tally's B2B2C FinTech company that helps people pay their credit card debt.
00:00:29
Speaker
backed by investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins.
Janessa Stout's Career Path to COO
00:00:34
Speaker
Since Tally launched, they've helped consumers pay off more than a billion dollars in credit card debt, which is a pretty cool track record. Janessa, you'll hear a little bit more about your background today, but welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Tyler. I'm really happy to be here.
00:00:52
Speaker
You've had a really interesting career from litigation, now COO, working in government. We're going to get to all that. But before we examine that trajectory, I'd really love to hear about some of your early innings and what drove you to law school and made you decide to pursue a career as a lawyer. Yeah.
00:01:11
Speaker
Thanks, Tyler. Well, for me, my career has certainly been much more of a winding path than any sort of straight line. I definitely didn't think that this is where I would be, although I'm very happy to be here. And law school, becoming a lawyer, it wasn't really ever a long-term goal for me. I grew up on a farm.
00:01:29
Speaker
in a really rural part of Washington State, I didn't even really know about lawyers, that that was a thing, let alone know any actual lawyers. So I didn't really have a sense for what a legal career would even look like. But I've really always liked learning, and my curiosity really is what's propelled me through college and onward. And I knew I wanted to go to grad school, and it was really around
00:01:56
Speaker
end of my time in undergrad that I started thinking about what would I maybe want to do next.
Motivations Behind Joining CFPB
00:02:02
Speaker
And I started considering law school because I found the intellectual pursuit of the law interesting. I liked politics. I thought that was interesting. So I thought it was compelling, but I did have this like big overarching dream of like wanting to be a lawyer. That just wasn't something that was in my periphery really.
00:02:20
Speaker
Now I know that out of law school, you ended up doing planticide class action work. It's pretty common to maybe transition from something like that to an in-house role right away. And you ended up going to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, curious about sort of like both of those positions and the interplay between the two. And I think that sort of moment in history as well, which was pretty interesting around American politics and what was happening with the CFPB.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Well, on to the first point, I guess I could also say, as I just mentioned, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Even before law school, just I decided when I was finishing my undergrad, I was like, I think I could like being a lawyer. But why don't I get a job at a law firm to just be around lawyers and you know, see if I would even like it. And so I did that I went I got a job
00:03:11
Speaker
at a law firm, and the law firm was actually Hoggins, Berman, Sobel, Shapiro. I was the receptionist there. Oh, wow. Yeah. On both sides of law school. Yeah, I actually started there as a receptionist. I worked there all through law school. I would help in accounting. Eventually, sometimes I ended up doing paralegal type work.
00:03:33
Speaker
And then I eventually worked there as a lawyer after law school as well. And so I kind of just stumbled into it by just starting out my legal career at Hogg and Sperman. But part of the reason I thought I would like law school is because I liked the work that Hogg and Sperman, even from a non legal perspective, you know, there's a different pace to plaintiff side complex litigation. I liked the challenge of like unraveling facts and like building a case, you're more in a
00:04:01
Speaker
first mover position, you know, you're like initiating the case, as opposed to defense work, you're reacting and you're playing catch a lot. So that served me really well when I went to the CFPB. But to your point, if I could just have one like little side rant on what helped me like be really interested in the CFPB is I got out of the law school right around the time of the financial crisis. And a lot of the work that Hogg experiment ended up
00:04:28
Speaker
doing at that time was related to consumer financial issues. People lost their houses. It was just a whole slew of consumer financial concerns.
Challenges and Experiences at CFPB
00:04:38
Speaker
I had this partner that said, okay, go figure out what regulatory decisions have ever
00:04:44
Speaker
come down on these sorts of consumer financial issues. And I went off to do my research project, and I could find two, two decisions since like the 70s. Really? Yeah, there was just there was the Office of Thrift Supervision had had one and there just was nothing. And I don't think I'm the most insightful person about politics. But even for me, it was like, wow, this seems like a really big gap.
00:05:10
Speaker
And then when I saw that the CFPB was being formed when Elizabeth Warren put forward this idea, for me it really resonated. And so the experience I'd had at Huggins-Berman really helped me be very interested in what the CFPB was going to do. And really the work in enforcement in CFPB is also kind of in that first mover position where you're building a case, putting it together, and I really enjoyed that.
00:05:34
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about, about that time at the CFPB. I'm curious, what were you working on? It was pretty early innings for the agency, right? Yeah. I mean, in the beginning, we didn't have authority from Congress. So in the beginning, it was a lot of hypothetical like planning, like what, you know, how would we do things? How will we subpoena for documents? Where does that authority come from? I mean, sort of the very basic building blocks of
00:05:59
Speaker
what that should look like, which was really interesting because usually when you enter a new government process, it's existed for years and years and years. And this was a lot of very foundational work of putting that in place. And then that sort of trend continued. Everything was like, this is the first time we've ever done blah, blah, blah.
00:06:21
Speaker
And that was really kind of fun. It was fun to be in a group of people like learning together and understanding how to do this. We certainly, you know, made lots of mistakes and learned a lot. But it was a really exciting time to be part of that. And, you know, certainly I knew that there was really a need to have protection for consumers in that place. And so it was really exciting to work with them.
00:06:43
Speaker
I'm sure it was also probably tough at times. I mean, it's a very political environment. I'm curious, you know, throughout those years, what kept you motivated and kept you going? Yeah, well, as I just sort of alluded to, one of the valuable things that happened to me during my time at Hoggins-Burman,
00:07:03
Speaker
Most plaintiffs firms don't usually hire somebody right out of law school. It's just, there's not the infrastructure to train you. And so it's a lot more, I guess, loose maybe than a big law firm that has a lot of infrastructure. So I think it's important to keep that in mind as you're somebody getting right out of law school. But for me, a lot of what I did is they threw me in and said, okay, start talking to these consumers and understand like what their issues are and their concerns are as a input to building cases.
00:07:34
Speaker
And so for me, that really has been a motivator of just understanding how
00:07:40
Speaker
know, the financial issues that we all face, you know, these are like really core issues to our lives and impacts our happiness in our life, our mental health, just overall security. And so I think this even today to my role at Tally, where we're really focused on helping people with credit card debt, which is also, I think, a really big aspect of American consumers' financial life,
00:08:04
Speaker
That has really motivated me because I think it's an important place to make sure we're thinking about what we can do to support consumers in the
Transition to PayPal and Influencing Consumer Treatment
00:08:14
Speaker
U.S. From the CFPB, you then ended up deciding to go in-house and tried your hand working for PayPal.
00:08:22
Speaker
How did you know it was time, I guess? I mean, I can imagine being at the CFPB and feeling like you're really making a difference and feeling really motivated. How did you know it was time maybe for you personally and professionally to move to PayPal? Yeah, I had a humbling moment, Tyler. You know, I think, and I say this with, I think an appropriate amount, I hope anyways, of like a little bit of embarrassment or
00:08:46
Speaker
I, when I finished law school and then Hoggins-Berman and even at the CFPB as well, I think I was pretty strident and probably a little arrogant in my views. I thought, you know, corporations are the real problem and, you know, they're always going to like screw over the little guy. And a big lesson I will just say I've learned throughout my legal career is a problem can look so different from a different
00:09:11
Speaker
point of view. And it's just really valuable to be curious and examine problems through different lenses. So I had this, you know, very like outsized sort of maybe like self-aggrandizing a little bit view of like, we have to like make these things right, you know, to help consumers. And I do believe there's threads of
00:09:28
Speaker
truth in there. Our capitalism does tend to capitalize on weaker people, and those people deserve protections. But I have this moment, and this is sort of the humbling part, is I worked really, really hard on all my cases at the CFPB and at Hogg experiment, and I really tried to drive the best outcomes possible for consumers. I wanted to do what I could to try to help shape a better marketplace,
00:09:55
Speaker
And in every instance, I had this moment at the CFPB and I was sitting there realizing like just how hard it worked over the last few years on this one particular case. And I realized what would actually be better is if this whole thing had never happened.
00:10:10
Speaker
At the beginning, we just had the behavior that caused the underlying behavior, if that just hadn't happened. Consumers didn't have to go through all of this. The only way you can really change the way a consumer is treated upfront is within the company that's offering the consumer the product.
00:10:30
Speaker
And when I had that realization, it really shifted things for me of like, there are a lot of ways to advocate and support and help consumers, not just one. And I guess that's the humbling part is I just see how narrow my thinking was originally. So that is what really led me to PayPal is I decided, okay, I want to try to work on these problems.
00:10:49
Speaker
from a different perspective and PayPal really helped me understand the complexities of building and delivering these types of products at scale. So it was a really great experience. Tell us a little bit, I mean, to what you can about some of the issues that you worked on at PayPal, because then I'm really curious for how you made the transition from that sort of work into, you know, a really general role as your first GC role at Tally, but we'll get to Tally in a sec.
00:11:17
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Yeah. At PayPal, you know, one thing that happened that, I mean, PayPal has a lot of really great consumer products, including Venmo. And so one of the things I spent a lot of time working on was Venmo. And as we know at startups, things just sometimes grow so quickly and so fast that there's not any ill intention. It's just like things get ahead of you. And so there was a lot of really interesting work to do to, I mean, Venmo is,
00:11:46
Speaker
such a great product. It makes life so much better and easier. But there was a lot of work I was able to come in and do at Venmo of really just helping to catch up and put some of the processes in place that just in a really high growth startup sometimes can get missed. So that was really interesting. And it was really illuminating for me in what a challenge it is. And you can have the very best of intentions within a company. And then
00:12:14
Speaker
You're like, we're doing what? You know, I didn't realize that that's what's happening in PayPal as well. I mean, the consumer products of PayPal, I think are also something that can be really enable a consumer's life and enable like online transactions. I use Venmo almost every weekend. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that was an exciting time for Venmo as well, as it was really taking off and growing. And there was the whole social aspect to it, too.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And there was like the privacy laws and things. They just, they've evolved so much if you think back to like 2011, 2012. I mean, it was very different. And so, you know, Venmo was kind of in the midst of all of that. And it's hard sometimes when you're in the midst of a really fast changing regulatory environment to figure out how to give good advice as a lawyer inside. So yeah, but so that was a really exciting opportunity in time.
00:13:10
Speaker
But sometimes, as you're highlighting, you definitely need a lawyer in the room or someone who's thinking deeply about the consumer protection issues as much as the sort of growth and how to deliver a great product to consumers.
Joining Tally and Expanding Roles
00:13:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Then you made the move to Tally and I think you've had a pretty exciting run there. You know, now you end up serving, you serve as COO and sales, marketing, finance. I think it was kind of a combination. It was just, I met somebody that worked there.
00:13:41
Speaker
at an event as one does around Silicon Valley. So it was just a connection like that where we started talking and then it eventually evolved into that. But it took a little while because I think for at least for me as a lawyer, the thought of being not only the only lawyer in a company, but the first lawyer felt really, really, really terrifying. And that so it took me a while to adjust to that idea to
00:14:09
Speaker
be okay with it. Now I realize it's just like anything else. You just figure out one problem and then you figure out the next problem. And, and just like, that's sort of what we do as lawyers, right? We just figure out one problem after another. And it's not as overwhelming as it seems. When you think about the whole thing, it feels overwhelming. But when you think about like, okay, now I'm working on this. Okay. I do know the answer to this. And then we can think about the next problem. But it took me a little while to get confident in that, you know, Tali had a
00:14:40
Speaker
started out, it's a lending company, so we lend lines of credit to consumers with credit card debt, and basically this helps them save money on interest because we give them a
00:14:51
Speaker
lower APR and help them pay off their cards more efficiently. So that requires lending licenses. And so that was a big start. And because I'd had a lot of exposure to just regulatory frameworks, that was a good starting place for me in terms of just getting my feet under me. And then eventually I started evolving into, you know, more even just legal issues. You kind of are like, okay, let me figure out how this trademark thing works. You know, now.
00:15:18
Speaker
Let me figure out this other. And so it just kind of evolved over time. And you began to take on other business responsibilities as well. Tell us a little bit about how you leveraged that sort of legal expertise or your role within the company to begin to grow in new areas. Yeah, I would say, and this is just unique to me. I mean, I think it could be totally understandable that somebody could really have their
00:15:48
Speaker
heart set on being COO and that could be the goal they were heading for. That wasn't the case for me. This kind of has evolved, but really the next thing after GC is I started taking on a lot of the people responsibilities, which is a pretty natural segue for a lot of lawyers. You know, there's a lot of employment issues that are overlapping, especially when COVID started. I really started taking on more of
00:16:13
Speaker
of those issues. And as I start figuring out more of these problems, it just continued to kind of grow to say, okay, I think I can understand this and can help us figure out how to navigate through this as well. And tell us a little bit about the progression of functions reporting into you, I guess. And one of the things that I'm really curious there to dig in on is how you built trust with either the existing team members or the executives.
00:16:41
Speaker
who, you know, now we're reporting up into you. Yep. Okay. So maybe I'll answer that part first. I think part of the way you build trust is like it's so working at a startup is hard. I mean, work is hard in general, but I think working at a startup can be extra hard because it's just
00:17:01
Speaker
You know, there's not a lot of infrastructure. And so you're like, okay, we got to figure this compensation How are we going to do that? Like from zero as opposed to you know, coming in where there's sort of a framework just as one example So I think one way to build trust is people just need help and if you're willing to get in there and be a real partner with them, even if it isn't totally
00:17:24
Speaker
a pure legal issue, but I think lawyers, the way we are trained to think and analyze problems, we have a lot of skills at just coming in and being a thought partner and a support and helping people navigate forward. And I think that's a great way to build trust. You might not have the answer, but you can help figure out an answer or help figure out the considerations for the answer. So that would be the most practical thing I could say is
00:17:52
Speaker
be willing to get in there and get your hands dirty with other people and really be a partner to them. And I think that builds a lot of trust as well. So the first part of your question about the progression, it really is sort of as the business evolved. So in some cases it would be the situation might be, you know, we need someone to really step in and help lead the people function. It may be we're transitioning the way finance is being led and there's a gap.
00:18:19
Speaker
Janessa could probably do it, you know, so sometimes it's a little bit more just of what's happening in the moment. And it's just kind of progressively continued it that way. And then Jason Brown, the CEO of Talley, as he and I started working more and more closely together.
00:18:36
Speaker
Then we started thinking about, okay, what actually makes sense in the way we structure Tally's leadership team? How can we make this team the most effective, strongest team possible? And then eventually that's how it ended up that the functions are reporting into me.
Building Trust and Leadership
00:18:50
Speaker
You talked a little bit about HR, where I think you're right. I think there is often a natural
00:18:56
Speaker
sort of overlap in the skill set or even a lot of the employment law issues that might have been shared between legal and ahead of people. And so I think it's increasingly common now to see unless there's a dedicated sort of chief people officer focused on culture, it's common to see someone who runs both legal and HR.
00:19:14
Speaker
Some of the other functions though, and we don't have to talk about all of them, take your pick, but whether it's finance or product and engineering or recruiting, there may not be as natural of an overlap between the sort of skills of the GC and the subject matter expertise in those functions.
00:19:31
Speaker
Tell us about the learning curve. Did you pursue formal education in any of these areas? Yeah. Oh, I have this to show you. This is my accounting for dummies right here. That's amazing. This is a people book I read. But to be clear, no one will ever be hiring me during accounting for anything. Really, the real thing is to hire somebody who's
00:19:55
Speaker
Awesome at this function and figure out how to support them. Yes, though there is a learning curve. I was very intimidated to start leading Finance and I don't even I feel more like I support finance We have a really great team in place at tally now that I feel super proud of and the part I can be proud of is
00:20:15
Speaker
is that they're so awesome, not that I'm an expert in finance. But yes, I think part of being able to hire someone who's great and then support that person is you do need to have some sort of understanding, and that could come from
00:20:31
Speaker
reading this people book I read is this Jack Altman people strategy as just a way to start and I listed as a podcast, you know, kind of along these lines, reading articles, just anything to start getting yourself educated, talking to people that are actually in the space also has been really helpful for me when we also have a credit team at tally. And that's my current area that I'm really trying to learn more and I'm never going to be an expert at
00:20:59
Speaker
at credit, but as I'm learning more about it, I think I can learn more about how to support people in that function so that the people that are the real experts can do their best work. I'm sure our listeners are curious, besides, of course, the abstract. What are some other podcasts that you've been listening to recently? Oh, well, I mean, I have so many. I don't know if I want to say publicly because they're a little bit embarrassing. You don't need to share the guilty pleasures.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, well, I love all the like probably regular news ones. I mean, the daily I love pivot. That's a great one. I care. Swisher and Scott Galloway. They're they're great.
00:21:38
Speaker
Can I tell you, you may choose to take this out of the podcast, which is fine, but I just listened to this great podcast that I can't stop thinking about and it's called Pressure Cooker. And it's about, it's a Canadian broadcasting company put it out and it's about these two individuals in Vancouver, Canada.
00:22:00
Speaker
that basically were part of a sting operation against them. They had converted to Islam and had loosely talked about some sort of act of terrorism, but they were
00:22:12
Speaker
quite vulnerable drug, drug addictions, maybe mentally, you know, not that the highest IQs and the Canadian police pulled off this massive sting operation, undercover sting operation against them. And it's a really fascinating story about their sort of journey with
00:22:34
Speaker
the Canadian police, I really enjoyed the whole thing. So I think I really enjoyed like journalistic podcasts like that as well that are just great stories and great insights into culture. So pressure cooker, I would really add that to my mind. I think you'll enjoy
Culture and Leadership
00:22:50
Speaker
it. So
00:22:50
Speaker
I'm lucky to spend a lot of time on planes visiting customers and future podcast guests all around the country. So I'll listen to that one as fall travel kicks off. Okay, awesome. It was quite fascinating.
00:23:04
Speaker
As you've grown into the COO role, I see probability that you're a lot more responsible for culture across the organization than you once were, and setting that tone in a quasi-virtual or remote environment. Tell us a little bit about what you think works well for setting and building culture.
00:23:29
Speaker
Sure. One thing I have learned is that culture is what it is today. And you can't count on that. It's going to be that for six months. It's something you have to always be investing in, always be sensitive to it, always be realizing that it's growing and changing and evolving. So just because your culture was one way six months ago, doesn't mean that that's what it is today. And so that, that has been a really valuable lesson for me to not take any of that for granted.
00:23:59
Speaker
Another thing is, and this is not novel, but culture really is modeled at the top, right? So the behaviors of the leaders are really going to inform the culture. And that's not just the CEO or COO it's, it is those people, but it's also the people leading the teams. And, and I think it continues to.
00:24:20
Speaker
trickle down. I had a situation a few weeks ago where somebody was giving me some feedback on something that they thought I could have done better on. And it can feel really hard, especially when you work really hard on this and you tried to do a really good job and they're telling you that wasn't good. That can be hard. And how do you respond in that moment? I think that really informs, informs the culture.
00:24:46
Speaker
a lot. And then, you know, culture is really, it's the aggregate behaviors of the group of people. And so I think just being really sensitive to that and talking about that as a group, one thing we do at Tally is we try, during our town halls, we try to have somebody give a values presentation where it talks about one of Tally's three different values and talking about
00:25:11
Speaker
one of the values and it can be really whatever they want. Like this is a way they've seen the value model. This is what it means to them. But just having things built into your culture where you repeatedly reinforce the behaviors that you want to model as part of your culture.
00:25:28
Speaker
I love that. You know, you have a boss or a CEO who never takes a vacation or doesn't take maternity or paternity leave themselves or responds to messages immediately at one in the morning, right? It's going to set a very different tone for the organization than maybe someone who models slightly different behavior. So I love that you think about sort of modeling behavior, both yourself, but also how you can highlight examples of other folks modeling it as well.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, very much so. And sometimes you need people to tell you these things, even when it's hard here. I mean, my team told me, it really stresses us out when you slack us at 10 PM. And I was thinking like, well, this is where I'm catching, you know, catching up on everything. And so, and it actually helps me feel less stressed to be, you know, getting these things off my plate. But them explaining that to me and
00:26:22
Speaker
me being willing to receive that has helped me, you know, let me change my behavior and not select somebody at 10 PM and just recognize I want to be respectful of their time. But I think these are just all small things. There's not like one magical thing, but it is really all of the behaviors put together that make up the culture.
Career Growth Advice
00:26:40
Speaker
as you think about the sort of, I guess, year and a half so far that you've been in the bigger role and look back on your time as a solely sort of a legal leader, what advice would you have for folks who might be a GC, but I guess they might also, you know, just be working as a lawyer and a firm and want to expand their scope or grow into a broader business leadership role over time? Yeah, one thing I would,
00:27:08
Speaker
really encourage people that are interested in that path is to really understand the business from many different points of view and understand what does this group care about? You know, what does this group care about and try to understand the whole machine that fits together of the business because that gives you such better insight into the way the company works. And this, it's true of lawyers, as we know, if you're the lawyer that comes in and is like,
00:27:34
Speaker
No, that won't work. That's not very helpful, right? The goal is to try to figure out a path forward. And I don't think that only applies to lawyers. I think that's true in any function is like, okay, what is tally as a company or whatever your company is? What do we need to do? What are the objectives of the business?
00:27:54
Speaker
What can we do in service of that? So I think the first thing is if you want to expand your scope, you can't just stay in your lane and be like, I'm the lawyer. This is what I do. You do the other things. You have to be willing to branch out in a way that's not too annoying to everybody else. And then I think another thing is be willing to own hard, complicated things that nobody else wants to do because they're hard and complicated.
00:28:25
Speaker
You know, I mean, it's just like, it's a lot of work, right? But are you willing to take on this hard, complicated thing that needs to be solved for the business and you're willing to do it? That actually gives you a lot of scope and understanding and really wisdom about what the business needs. And so I think that's another path you can take, but you have to be willing to like really get in there and do things that maybe other people don't necessarily want to do.
00:28:51
Speaker
To maybe sort of close out the thought about how you can grow over time, do you have a perspective on, and it may be a mix, whether or not those other sorts of opportunities to take on a really hard problem are things that in your career you sought out or are things that maybe were brought to you by a mentor or another executive in the business?
00:29:15
Speaker
Most of the things I didn't seek out, but I don't think anyone was bringing them to me like, we think this would be good for your growth, Janessa. It was more like, help, we need help with this. Will you help us? Which is, it's fine. And that's the way like life works a lot of times. And so.
00:29:33
Speaker
That's a really good question, Tyler. I don't think, and maybe this speaks to my poor career planning. I don't think there's a lot of things that I have been like, I want to be in charge of compensation. Sounds great. But it's more like, okay, this is a thing we need to understand and figure out. And, and so let's
Future of the GC Role in Business Strategy
00:29:53
Speaker
do that. And let me, let me be part of that solution. But I, there's actually no reason though, if you were like, if you recognize, you know, I think I actually have,
00:30:02
Speaker
strength and insight in this area. Let me volunteer to say, hey, I could pitch in and help. How could that happen? I think that's a perfectly legitimate way to go forward also. I've got a few fun sort of higher round of questions for you. The first is looking back, you talked a little bit about your time before and after law school, but if you had one piece of advice that you'd give to young attorneys or that you might even tell your younger self to do a little differently, what would that be?
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, this kind of relates actually to what we were just talking about, about growth. And I think that is whatever the task ahead of you is, even if you don't really want to do it, or it wouldn't be your first choice of things to do, just try to be awesome at it. Like just try to just own it and do the best that you can do. And because that is one thing that has served me well is just, even if something seems like this is not the sexy thing to be assigned to, but I'm going to just
00:30:59
Speaker
dig in and like try to really crush this and be as good as I can. One of the things that happened to me at the CFPB is there was this the way the case processes would work at that time is we'd write a little memo about the potential investigation we might start and then I would go up the chain and they decide whether or not to open it. And my boss at the time asked me to do a little memo and it was on a
00:31:23
Speaker
a RESPA investigation, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which is not a law I had any interest in working on. So I wrote up my little memo and at the end I put, I do not want to work on this. And then he assigned me to the case and I had one of those moments of being like, okay, you know what?
00:31:43
Speaker
I'm going to crush this case and I'm going to make it the best, do the best I can with it. And I really learned so much from that investigation and from that case in this process of just digging into sort of this esoteric area of the law that I wasn't that interested in, but I learned so much from it. And I think trying to
00:32:03
Speaker
like follow that path of like this is what's in front of me and I'm going to do really well is valuable rather than being like, Oh, I wish I was over there doing this other thing. So
00:32:14
Speaker
That's an amazing story. I could see someone in law school or in college writing, I do not want to do this on the paper to just see if their professor is actually reading it, but that's funny. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe he didn't even read it. Especially given your seat now as a COO too. I'm curious how you see the role of the GC evolving over time and where you think it's headed.
00:32:44
Speaker
Well, I know what I want to see. So I might be just seeing that because it's what, but I, you know, I think lawyers bring or at least have a potential to bring such value to the business because I really do think lawyers are trained to think in a very systematic, but also creative way about how to solve problems. And, and really that's what businesses need. But one thing I've experienced in working in-house and especially in the startup world is
00:33:13
Speaker
People often don't know how to use a lawyer. They kind of think, oh, you're a lawyer. You're this thing that I go to when I have like a hard legal question with confusing words. But I hope to see the GC function and the legal function really evolve to be more really part of the business and contributing to the overall growth of the business, not this sort of isolated, you know, ivory tower kind of function. Early in my career, when I was sort of beginning to work with outside counsel for the first time,
00:33:43
Speaker
I had another lawyer who was outside counsel give me some very good advice along those lines that was lawyers are not vending machines. In other words, you don't go to them and put some money in and get a snack out, right? Even with outside counsel, you need to really have a relationship with them. They need to understand.
00:34:02
Speaker
your risk tolerance, your product, where the business has added what the strategy is. I always thought that was a nice way to sum it up. It's true for in-house lawyers as well or in-house legal professionals too. Lawyers and legal professionals are not vending machines.
00:34:18
Speaker
not vending machines. And there's real value too that can be added when you take the time, I think, to invest in those relationships.
Recommended Readings and Motivations
00:34:26
Speaker
So I agree. We've heard about a great podcast. I'm curious about a book maybe to help folks summer reading list that has inspired you either personally or professionally, or if not inspired you at least entertained.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, I love reading so there's so many books the one that just pops into my head right now Anyways is a book that I've that I think has and this is a business book So I don't know if people want to read it on the beach necessarily it's probably not in that category but and it's a Jim Collins book who I really I
00:35:00
Speaker
Love his writing and then also, you know, I think he's a very inspiring person as well But he wrote this book called good to great Have you read this book? I have not no, but I've seen it on on a lot of books. Oh, so maybe I should yeah Yeah, I mean it's been around for a while. So but it's the premise of the book is there's 28 companies that and he is comparing basically in sets of two so he's comparing and
00:35:25
Speaker
a company that has sustained what he and his researchers defined as elite growth for at least, I think it was 15 years. It's like a sustained period of time. They've just had outstanding results. Then I'll have a comparator company that also had a lot of potential, but really succumbed to mediocrity as idea. What were the differences? Good, the second company is still good, but it wasn't great. What makes a company really great?
00:35:54
Speaker
And at least in my professional life, I love, maybe to my own detriment, but I always love the idea of like, how can we take things up a notch? And I think he has some really valuable insights in what that can look like. So that would be a book that I've really enjoyed. I'm going to go out and, well, I might order on Amazon or buy it from a local bookstore. That's a great recommendation. Yeah, it's a good one.
00:36:21
Speaker
To close this out, we've talked a little bit about this. We've talked also quite a bit about tackling hard problems and doing hard things and the challenges associated with building a business. What has kept you motivated all throughout your career?
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Sometimes I'm like, what, what is keeping me motivated? Well, one is that I, I do care a lot about the consumer financial space. It's something that's just personal to me. You know, in my family, we didn't grow up with
00:36:52
Speaker
a ton of resources and I saw my parents be very responsible and thoughtful in the way they managed their money. And it's really motivated me to want to better understand that. So that has always been a thread for me that is kept to be motivated. But I think even beyond that is I, like I said, for better or for worse, I am motivated by wanting to do great work.
00:37:18
Speaker
And that really does drive me. I don't believe that work is everything. Of course, I know there's more to life than just that, but I really find great pleasure and joy in doing excellent work and building great teams and enjoying the people that you work with. That's one thing I feel super lucky about at Tally is I love working with the team also, in addition to really loving the work we get to
Conclusion and Reflections
00:37:42
Speaker
do.
00:37:42
Speaker
Well, Janessa, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing really candid insights with us today on your time working in government at big companies like PayPal, now at Tally, which is already a pretty big company, one day maybe even bigger, just like PayPal. Yeah, definitely. I'm putting it out there, Tyler.
00:38:04
Speaker
And, you know, as COO too. You're the first COO we've had on. I hope to have others as well who've made this transition. This has been really fantastic. And listeners, thanks so much for listening and we hope to see you next time on The Abstract.