S5E2: Robin Painter, Partner, Proskauer

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Moments that Made Her. I'm Emily Mandel, Executive director of PE win. Moments that Made her is a production of PE Win, the Private Equity Women Investor Network. We are a curated and purposeful network of senior women investment professionals across private markets, including leaders from institutional investors, asset managers, and private capital firms. Within PE win, members build trusted relationships, exchange candid insights, and gain a distinct edge, collectively advancing women's leadership and influence across the industry. To learn more, please visit pewin.org the host of Moments that Made her is Kelly Williams, founding chair of PE Win and founder of Customized Fund Investment Group, which she grew into a leading private markets firm, managing approximately 30 billion in assets before its sale in 2014. Kelly is the CEO of the Williams Legacy foundation and an active board director across corporate and nonprofit organizations. We hope you enjoy today's episode.

Speaker B: Welcome to Moments that Made Her. I'm Kelly Williams, the founding chair of the Private Equity Women Investor Network and the Chief Executive Officer of the Williams Legacy Foundation. And I've been so looking forward to this discussion with my guest today. She is one of my favorite people. We always laugh so much when we're together, and I know it's going to happen again today. So please welcome my dear friend, Robyn Painter.

Speaker C: Thanks, Carrie, so much for having me. This is a lot of fun.

Speaker B: Yeah, delighted to have you. So, Robin, I feel like you're this legend in the industry, but maybe just for our, uh, listeners who haven't met you before, why don't we start a little bit at the beginning and talk a little bit about where and how you grew up.

Speaker C: Let's see. I grew up on Long island in a very middle class town. My dad had a small accounting practice. My mom was a stay at home mom. I would characterize my growing up as just very different than today. My brothers and I joked that we were sort of feral children. We were sort of running around with no supervision whatsoever, and hopefully we showed up for dinner and that was about it. I remember one story in particular, and it was about curfews. I remember I had whatever my curfew was, but my parents wouldn't be bothered to stay up to wait for my curfew. So they would put an alarm clock outside their door set to my curfew. So I had to get home in time to turn it off. But of course I had a little brother, so I just pay him to turn it off. And that pretty much characterizes my child, my childhood as a teenager, um, you know, sort of the Same thing. And it was such a gift in a way. Like, I did well in sports and in school, but other than that, like, I was pretty crazy. And it was, you know, kind of got my wild oats out in time. So by the time I got to college, I was ready to settle down and work.

Speaker B: I have a feeling you were probably like me. I had a dad who had been a narcotics detective, so you can imagine. But my parents, I don't know why, but they always really trusted me. And, you know, in retrospect, they probably should not have because I was a pretty wild girl. But I always remember coming home, if I passed curfew and all I could see, you know, we grew up in like a 60s tract house.

Speaker C: Same.

Speaker B: The screen door was open and you just see my dad silhouetted in the door. And usually he's like standing there in his boxer shorts, like, waiting for me, but all I saw was the silhouette and I'm like, oh, no, I'm really in trouble now. Here we go.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I think looking at the way children are raised today, including my own, children are raised with a lot more supervision. And I'm not sure it's such a good thing. You really learned how to get along with people, problem solve, deal with boredom, for better or worse. All these things that now kids have to be trained to do all that where when we were growing up, you just sort of figured it out on your own.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, I'm not a parent and I, you know, I marvel at parents, but I just, I don't have it in me to be the helicopter parent that so many people are. But I have a lot of respect for parents because that's not something that I figured out how to add to the three dimensional chess of my life.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Yeah. Were you like me? People have heard me tell the story many times. Like, I knew I was going to be a lawyer from the time I was a little kid. Did you have the same experience?

Speaker C: No, not at all. I mean, I was very much an entrepreneur as a little kid. And in fact, my best friend, I grew up. Her name was Karen. She sent me this thing the other day, which was a sign that we'd posted in our neighborhood. I'm just going to read it to you because it's hysterical. Would you like two responsible girls, Karen, who is 11, and Robin, who is 10 and a half, to babysit, shovel snow, run errands, and it goes on. We really want to do these jobs not because of the money, but because of the fun and experience. And then we were charging, let's see, 50 cents an hour for babysitting, $2.50 each for shoveling snow. Where. And we. This is on, um, the poster. We shovel. A baby can walk. We're on errands. And at the bottom it said, remember our motto, we don't do it unless we do it right.

Speaker B: This is.

Speaker C: I was 10 and a half years old.

Speaker B: Oh, Robin, you were a, uh, marketing guru. You were a lawyer.

Speaker C: We did everything we would. We did like, this was back before people did like birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese or whatever. So we had a whole business where we would run kids birthday parties. We would run like arts and crafts. But I would say, like, probably the most creative one is. And this is one my freshman year, summer of college, I got home and this was the gas crisis. And so everyone had to line up and wait outside the gas station for hours. And you know, we grew up in Long Island. Everyone had these big Lincolns and Cadillacs, these big gas guzzling. So we had a business where we'd pick up all the cars, put them in a row and move them through the line. And I remember because I read the entire Dickens series in the backseat of all these fancy cars while I moved them through the gas line.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.

Speaker C: You know, we came up with a lot of fun stuff. So Yeah, I was just always doing stuff like that. I mean, the only reason, frankly, I went to law school is because I graduated from college in 78 and it was a recession. So. No, no, 82. 82 is when I graduated. And so there were no jobs. So I was like, well, I'm already in so much debt, I might as well just keep going. So, you know, I went to law school.

Speaker B: So here's my question. What were you doing with all that money you were earning?

Speaker C: Oh, let's see. I was buying 17 magazines. You know, glow in the dark peace signs for my door. I don't know if you remember that there was, ah, there was a store right outside Penn Station called Zuma that had like roll lights and that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So that's what I spent all my money on.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not sure parents today know. Well, parents certainly do, or maybe grandparents. But that was sort of the, I guess the commercialization of the head shop.

Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Oh my word.

Speaker C: Lava lamps. Remember this?

Speaker B: Oh, I remember. And the incense and. Yeah, and the neon posters, like the black light posters that you could put in your room.

Speaker C: Yep. Bring it all back.

Speaker B: Yeah, I can actually smell that incense right now, so you talked a little bit about law school. Like you, I rolled right into law school. Now, I think a lot of kids don't do that. They take a year off between law or business. It is probably smart. But. So what made why law school as compared to another advanced degree?

Speaker C: I was always a good reader and a good writer and seemed like a natural fit. I didn't really give it a lot of thought.

Speaker B: Where'd you go to law school?

Speaker C: Boston. Uh, college. And that's where I met my husband, I remember, on the same law review together, and he was like editor in chief. And I was just doing it because I thought it would be good for my resume. Like, I really didn't have any interest in my article. Now, once I graduated from law school and I started working, I loved it, but I did not really love law school. I think it was because I'd gone straight through and I just didn't want to be in a classroom anymore.

Speaker B: So, yeah, yeah, I didn't love law school either. I went to nyu. And of course, when you're in a really cool city, like, law school's the last thing you want to be doing. There's so many other fun things going on. And now I would like. I'd love to go back now. I would appreciate it much more.

Speaker C: Well, I teach now with Sarah Reed. We teach at Harvard Law School, and we have a blast. We're having a really good time. So I do go back to law school every fall semester.

Speaker B: Well. And so what are you teaching?

Speaker C: Fun. Information, venture capital, the whole spectrum.

Speaker B: Yeah. So your class is the hot one. Everybody wants to be in your class.

Speaker C: It's so funny. Yeah. I mean, I think because I have two women sort of teaching like a finance kind of class is intriguing to people.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker C: Yeah, we've always had at least 100 people on the wait list since we started doing this.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker B: I don't know if you've seen this viral clip on social media. I don't even know who the woman is who's talking about the fact that last year or whatever year she's talking about 1.3% of all venture capital went to women. The point is, we talk about this all the time, but one of the primary points is that the vast majority, almost all technology is developed through a male lens.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: That's one part of the conversation that doesn't happen. Like, you talk about. Okay, well, women don't have access to it, and there's not wealth creation and all this other stuff, but the real Issue, I think, for us as sort of humans and consumers of technology, particularly AI, is that so little of it is developed through a female lens.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't really thought of that. I mean, in my practice, I do a lot of life sciences, you know, biotech kind of funds. And, you know, there's a really interesting article yesterday. Was it on, uh, Melinda Gates, about how, like, there's been no research on premenopausal and postmenopausal women at all. You know, you think of all the money that's gone into this sector over the past few decades. I mean, that's astounding to me.

Speaker B: But, yeah, I have this amazing friend. Her name's Katie Brodsky, and she's a lawyer by training, too. I think she was a civil rights lawyer. And then she had some health issues while she was pregnant, and there was no research about her condition. And so she decided to start, I think it's called the foundation for Women's Health. And the most shocking thing was that the name was available and that. Right. Like, she was so shocked that no one had taken that name. And that was because no one was funding it. And so she, I think, just got a grant from one of the other foundations. But there's. Yeah, there's so little research done, which to me, which is interesting, you know, as an investor means there's. It's a huge investment opportunity. We're more than 50% of the population. We are the primary consumers of health care. It's a huge business opportunity.

Speaker C: It is. It definitely is. Couldn't agree more.

Speaker B: Talk a little bit about the early part of your career when you first started practicing law. What kind of law were you practicing?

Speaker C: I always worked all through law school. I worked as a nanny all through college, too. Like, that's how I put myself through school. So I was working for one of my law professors, my property law professors, his nanny. I lived in his basement. Fast forward. We went to law school during the recession. When we came out, every law firm was understaffed. I mean, if you could walk in and not trip over yourselves, you would get an offer. So I laid all my offer letters out on the kitchen table. I'm like, what do you think? And there were all the established firms that you would expect. And he's like, well, there's this guy named Dick Testa who's doing this really interesting thing called venture capital. That sounds pretty cool. And I remember passing up all these brand name firms to be the 42nd lawyer at Dick's firm. And my parents were freaking out because they were like, finally I'm able to brag about my wayward daughter. And now she goes and does this. Right, so. And in its day, you know, Tessa Hurwitz was sort of the Wilson Cinsini of the East Coast. It was more venture capital markets, IPOs, that kind of stuff. It was less PE, more venture. But yeah, and I just, I loved it. I remember my first client was New Enterprise Associates.

Speaker B: You're kidding. Oh my gosh. Wow.

Speaker C: And I remember I did NEA 3 and we raised $150 million. And everybody was like, there's no way the industry can absorb this much money.

Speaker B: That is hysterical. You know, NEA was my first venture investment because I remember when I started cfig, we all kind of sat down and said, okay, what relationships do we have? And I was like, I was just at this conference and I sat next to this guy from nea. I'm going to just call him. And I did. And he handed me over to their investor relations person and we got in. Wow. And we were high fiving on my side. It's like, you know, that was such a hard fund to get into and it's a blue chip name, but yeah. Isn't that funny? Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, back then people didn't really specialize. So you would do, I mean, you would do corporate or litigation, but within corporate you were expected to sort of do M and A capital markets, you know, startups, fun for me, partnerships, whatever. Like you just sort of did everything and there's no specialization. And I remember I was a fourth year associate or maybe a third year, I can't remember. And I had my first kid and I came back and I'm like, I can't keep up with all of this stuff. Like I want to specialize. Which back then was like, didn't happen. I remember going to Dick saying, I think we need like a fun formation practice. I was kind of doing thinking this was going to be like this sleepy little thing. And also it was a staffing issue because when you raise a fund, it takes back then it would take a year and a half or so you'd get staffing and then finally it would hit and then you'd have to be running around negotiating all the comments and getting the deal closed. And by then your associates were off at the printer, you know, back then. So I sort of pitched it as like a staffing model issue more than a lifestyle issue for moi. And it turned out to be prescient. I mean, uh, I didn't get to have my lifestyle because the industry just sort of exploded around us. But we had like a good 8, 10 year head start on pretty much anyone else in terms of structuring funds and thinking through tax and partnership issues. And we actually, you know, remember the VCOC exemption when pension plan finally got the green light from the DOL to invest in alternatives. Well, we wrote those ranks. We were so early in on the whole industry. So that's fun, right? So that's how I got started.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow, that's. That's amazing. I mean, when you see kind of what it's blossomed into now or burgeon and you don't realize at the time, you know, as you said, what you're doing or what, you know, what the opportunity is.

Speaker C: Yeah, Just stumbled into it and turned out to be something I enjoyed doing. And it was this niche. Like the hardest thing was recruiting people to the team because they wanted to do the deals that would show up in the financial trade press so their grandmother can clip it and put it in our refrigerator kind of thing. Back then it was considered far and sort of mass y, you know, waterfalls and all that stuff. And nowhere, it wasn't in the press at all. It was sort of this nasty thing. So the hardest part of the whole thing was recruiting people to join the team. So I rated all the tax departments because they like math, they're comfortable with waterfalls and you know, and they were happy to have like more of a forward facing role.

Speaker B: Well, that's interesting because of course, you know, that's kind of what my practice became and that mine was a very circuitous path because I started as a project finance lawyer. Lawyer. But you know, the transition from law to business was I became the head of product development, which is a natural, you know, transition.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so, you know, I am sure you get asked a lot of times by people, you know, how do I make the transition from law to business? And there are routes if you've chosen wisely in terms of how. Where you practice in the law firm.

Speaker C: Well, I always admired you because you did it. I never actually did it.

Speaker B: I'm sure you had lots of opportunities though. You must have gotten asked.

Speaker C: I got very close. I got very close a few times. But I think the reason I loved my law career is because I was, you know, I was kind of. People weren't hiring me because I was good at, you know, pointing out that little edited in that paper on page 48. I mean, they were hiring me because I'd been around. I had really Good pattern recognition. And I really quickly moved into more of a consulary sort of role with my clients. So even though I never moved over, I kind of felt like I was in the room, you know?

Speaker B: So, yeah, uh, I know this about you. I mean, you're like me. I think you take your skills as a problem solver pretty seriously. Right. And that's. At the end of the day, that's your competitive advantage. And as you said, you become more of a concierge. I always tell people, I think that the lawyers who do the best job of making the transition are the ones who figure out how to get to yes. Because so many lawyers spend time saying no.

Speaker C: Exactly. That's so true. None of my kids went to law school, but my two younger ones were starting a business together. And so my husband and I have been helping them out. And, uh, it's very interesting to sort of train them to not look at. Yes, there's a thousand risks in everything you do, but need to quantify those risks and figure out a way around them and to get to the answer. And it's been fun watching them sort of learn that.

Speaker B: Well, I recently had this conversation because when I did make the transition, I left the law department at Prudential, and then I went to the business side. So all my former colleagues became my lawyers, which was interesting. And I remember one of them telling me, like, well, you can't do that. You can't do that. And I said, wait a second. Your job as the lawyer is to identify the risk. And my job as the business person is to decide whether to take the risk. Right.

Speaker C: Or if you're going to take it. The best strategy on how to take that risk and still get to where you need to go.

Speaker B: Right, Exactly. Right. And the best lawyers do exactly what you just said. They help you work through that fact of how to best mitigate the risk or even just sort of go around the table and figure out what are all the scenarios that could happen. If you take this risk.

Speaker C: Right. And do it long enough, it becomes very instinctual, frankly, because you've just seen the movie a thousand times and you can pretty much guess exactly where it's going to go based on what's in front of you, which is part of fun of being old.

Speaker B: Well, I think it's part of why you can stay relaxed a little bit, you know, like, you stay calm in stressful situations because of the pattern recognition point you made.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's. And, uh, it's very fun when your advice is not taken and Then a year later, they call and say, you were right.

Speaker B: Exactly. Uh, well, the other thing I always tell people what I've realized over time is it's never as bad as you think it is. Is, you know, like, even in those moments of crisis when everything feels like it's crashing down around you, it's actually not as I think, particularly for women. Like, women, really, you, uh, know, we catastrophize and, you know, there's a way out, there's a way through.

Speaker C: Yes, that's right. Especially in the fun formation area, which is where I spend most of my time. Things move very slowly, really. It doesn't feel like that when you're in the middle of closing a fund. But every sort of whatever it is, clawbacks. After the tech bubble burst and everybody was in clawback. And how do you manage through those clawbacks? You know, it actually happens in kind of slow motion. You have a lot more time than you think you have to work through it.

Speaker B: Right, exactly. Well, we have so much more to talk about, but we're going to take a quick break and I will be back shortly with my guest, Robin Painter.

Speaker A: We'd like to thank Pewin's founding partner, kpmg and our gold partners, Asia Alternatives, Dukas Lynden Public Relations, Kane Anderson, Mubadala Capital, ProSec Partners, Kirkland and Ellis Proskour, Silver Lake, Thoma Bravo and tpg. Your support helps advance women across private markets. And now back to our episode.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Moments that Made her. I'm Kelly Williams, your host, and I'm here with Robin Painter. Robin, talk a little bit about how you made it to a partner and then practice head. How did that happen for you?

Speaker C: Well, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I made partner a couple of years early, so I didn't realize that I was up. So I never had any of that anxiety that you always hear about big law about, you know, this is your year and then maybe it's not your year and then you have to wait another year. And this, that, uh, and you know, all that drama. I mean, I remember I was like a fifth year associate or something, sixth year. And Vic calls me into his office. I have my little pad, assuming it was the project. And he's like, congratulations, you're a partner. I'm m like, oh, wow, that's cool. You know, so there was really no drama in terms of getting into that first, you know, that first rung. And then after that I think it was just, um, you know, I really did love. It worked really hard at it and was very passionate about it. And uh, it was almost a foregone conclusion where it was going to go. I didn't really have a lot of self reflection about it. It just certain things had to happen to build the practice and there I was doing it. So it was a lot of very natural progression, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, I often have this conversation with people because I get asked questions about moving up the corporate ladder. And I said, you know, I actually had a different experience. I was a founder. And so I wasn't moving up the ladder or maybe just a little bit. But as you, I mean, you were moving the ladder, you just, you got up there faster than you realized. Um, you know, one of the themes for this year's moments that made her is transitions. And you've had a few transitions across your legal career in terms of firms. So do you want to talk a little bit about them or are there any that stick out in particular?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I would say probably the biggest One is about 20 years ago, Dick passed away. And you know, my team had sort of moved beyond sort of the Dick Testa. Uh, you know, we were, we were an independent business and in fact we've had a relatively small headcount and produce a lot of the revenue for the firm. So there was sort of a mismatch there. And so when he passed, I was personally very sad because he was a huge mentor to me. But in terms of what was going to go on with the business, I wasn't really all that worried because we'd sort of outgrown that and in fact we'd have sort of outgrown the platform, which was a single office platform in Boston. And so then, as often happens when these first generation firms and started getting shaky, I had been sort of soft pitching this client forever and it was finally time and he called and was like, we're just worried about the stability of your firm, so we're going somewhere else. And I'm like, what? And meanwhile the team was saying, you know, you can be queen of us somewhere else or you can be queen of yourself here, but we're going and we'd like you to take us. So it sort of, it became something that we just had to do. So I remember taking Dick's widow out, making sure she was okay, and ultimately my co chair, and this is a guy named Dave Tendler. So Dave and I, we interviewed a thousand frums. Meanwhile, trying to keep this group together. Everyone's trying to pick them off. It was a rough but exciting Year. And in the end of the day, we ended up moving 40 some odd people over. And the day we announced two days later, test dissolved, which was hard. You know, I knew that was going to happen and we moved over to Cross Gower. And knock on wood, we pretty much had the same team we had back then. I mean, it's much bigger now. Now there's 200 some odd folks who were on the team. At the time it was 30ish. So it's become a much bigger business. But those original people pretty much stayed intact, which was really, really exciting.

Speaker B: Yeah. And that's a testament to you and Dave and I guess maybe to Proscower as well, in terms of how they treated people when they came over.

Speaker C: Yeah, they pretty much just figured whatever we're doing seems to be working. So they were extremely hands off. All I really cared about was to have a very large marketing budget because we had to rebrand the business. And Prof. Gower had a lot of really great things going for it as a platform, but it didn't really have the branding. So for the first two or three years, I was just on the road, you know, sort of going to every annual meeting, every ELPAC meeting, every conference, like, sort of just trying to rebrand on the Proskauer platform. And I remember, uh, one of my first clients back, literally, my first client is this venture fund called Arch. It's a life sciences fund. It's very large now. Time is small. And I remember when they stopped saying, oh, this is Robin Painter from Testa, I knew I finally rebranded the thing when they no longer said that, but it did take. It took a while, you know, it was a lot, but they were, as I said, very hands off. They figured we knew what we were doing and we did. And it's been very successful. So it's been great.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I feel like at least in our industry, the best mergers or the best acquisitions are the ones where people are hands off. Because what tends to happen, and again, this is in part because in the private equity world, which you realize this, but a lot of people don't, is that these are not companies. These are family offices. Right.

Speaker C: They're small businesses. In the end of the day.

Speaker B: Yeah, they're small family businesses. And a lot of times when two private equity firms or even two law firms merged together, they tried to absorb them into the Borg. Right. Like they want to be controlling. They want to have their brand on it, their name. They're afraid of the dislocation that could potentially happen by having a different personality but as you say, what ends up happening is they take what's special out of that group that they acquired and it's never quite the same. And the ones that work the best are the ones where they do give some autonomy and let them keep doing things that are additive and things that they really know what they're doing.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I remember one thing that they did do, though, which I'm really glad they did in hindsight. But we used to issue our own Delaware opinions back at Testa. This was a long time ago and, uh, the big firms had long stopped doing that. And they, you know, you specialize Delaware Council. And I remember when I was like, oh, now I have to add Delaware Council into the mix, you know, that was like. The only thing I remember was being like, oh, uh, yeah, yeah. But they were right. They were right.

Speaker B: They were right. They were right for sure.

Speaker C: But other than that, yeah, no, it's been great. I mean, we had sort of carte blanche on hiring and promotions. Uh, you know, the promotions are a firm wide thing, but the group was and continues to been growing so fast that there was an economic basis for the promotion. So, yeah, it's been great.

Speaker B: So talk a little bit about, you know, in the midst of all this. Obviously, venture in private equity is a very male world. Law firms. I mean, I remember the year I went to law school, we were the first majority women class at nyu.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: And there was a movement for a while within law firms, like of my generation where, you know, there were. There seemed to be more women and then there was a bit of a retrenchment. But you've always been somebody who's been active in helping bring more women into the industry and encouraging, whether it's female GPs, whether it's women within your firm. That's how you and I really got to know each other was through our work there. Talk about why that's important to you and how it's manifested for you.

Speaker C: I mean, well, talk about the conference that we started together. I remember that was a classic example at that time, I was representing a lot of limited partners and a lot of sponsors. Right. So I was sort of doing both. Many of the decision makers, most senior people on the LP side were women. And on the sponsor side, there were no decision makers at all. They were all guys. And, um, I remember there was a downtown turn in the fundraising market for various reasons. And I would go to meeting after meeting where they would be like, well, who knows this lp? Who knows that lp? Okay, you take this One. You take that one. I'm thinking, those are all my friends. And why are all the guys splitting these up? Like, this is insane. And so part of the reason we wanted to do that conference was I was like, listen, I don't want to be bellyaching about maternity leaves and all this other stuff. I just want to create that same network that should be there now of senior women on both sides getting to know each other and creating their own relationships. Uh, it just made sense to me, and it made sense to you and the other folks who were involved in that at the way beginning. And look at it, I remember people teasing me like, oh, you're going to have a women in Private equity conference, and there's going to be like 10 of you, you know, and what last year was thousands of people was huge, you know. So to me, that was more of. Just sort of annoyed me that these guys are all taking ownership of these relationships that were being run by women and where were the women on the other side? Um, but going back to, like, our team at Prosc Hour, we do have a lot of senior women in the funds team, broadly. It just is what it is. Like, I just don't really actually try. It's just I think maybe some women gravitated to the group because I was a senior person, Mary Kisto on the tax side, very senior. You know, there was just like a lot of senior women already sort of there, so maybe they found it easier to gravitate toward that team. I'm not really sure.

Speaker B: I think that's right. I think sometimes it's just simply being in a group of people, uh, who recognize what your life is like. Uh, you don't have to even have an overt conversation about it. You just know, okay, well, if there are all these women here, they probably know what it's like to have a family and have a husband who probably works, too, and all of the things that are unique to people in this industry. Yeah.

Speaker C: Although, I mean, I would say, like, the young dads on our team are very, you know, they want to get home for dinner and log on later. Which took a little getting used to. I think it was just sort of a natural thing. I mean, at some point it shifted, and people actually wanted to do this stuff as opposed to me trying to get people to do it Right. And a lot of women did gravitate toward it, which was great. I always did a lot of mentoring with women at the firm outside of what I do, just generally. But part of that was, okay, this is gonna Be very somewhat controversial. I guess part of it is because I just wanted to teach people like, yes, you have these challenges. Yes, we're unique. But in the end of the day, this is a business and you need to produce. And so trying to train younger women to have that mindset as opposed to, oh, uh, woe is me. I have all these challenges. Like, everybody's got challenges. Just produce and you're going to succeed, you know? And it seems like a simple message, but it does need to be taught sometimes.

Speaker B: I think I could not agree with you more. In fact, I have been saying in these somewhat dark feeling days that my personal view, maybe this is going to be controversial, is that women have already won. We just have to start acting like it. And.

Speaker C: Great point.

Speaker B: We are in control of a lot of stuff in our industry. Women are. I, um, think. I don't know if the majority of allocators are women, but a very high percentage of them are women. Not that we're not going to invest in every fund based on its merit. We certainly are. But we have to recognize that's a lot of power. A lot of women kind of don't exactly seize their power. And I realized in my practice, just spending a little bit of my power on another woman had huge dividends for them. A lot of women are placement agents or they're investor relations people in their firms. I would always make a point to tell the GP you would not have gotten this meeting without, like, I'm the head of the business. I don't take a meeting with everybody. You're here because of her and because her stock would rise because of that. And I think more women need to understand and telegraph that in a way. But just to say, hey, look, I have these relationships, they're important. And if you use me the right way and if you treat me the right way, this can be beneficial to the firm.

Speaker C: But one of my growth strategies when I was younger and still building my reputation, is if there's a woman on any client team, I pull them aside and be like, if you have a meeting and you want to make sure you're really feeling confident and you have questions about this, that or the other, call me off the clock. I will help you. So that when you walk into that meeting, you look like a rock star. And I was doing it partially because I knew what that felt like when you're worried about going to me, but also I was betting that these people were hotshots, and eventually they would be hotshots. You remember me?

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker C: And that did Happen.

Speaker B: Absolutely. People don't forget that.

Speaker C: But I also had this innate sense that they were going to be successful. Like, so I wasn't doing it solely because I want to make sure they had a great meeting. I was doing it because the long term, I could see that they were going to be great, and I wanted to, you know, help them out. Yeah.

Speaker B: Now you were being strategic, which I think is the right thing to do. Absolutely. Um, obviously you've had tremendous success. Have there been times where you've had kind of a teachable moment, maybe something that wasn't as successful, where you came away and said, well, that wasn't a great thing that happened, but I actually learned a very important lesson.

Speaker C: Yeah. I would say in my growth mode phase, I was not an easy boss. I was not respectful of people's time. I would change meeting times. I would hold on to something that needed feedback for too long. There would be, like, a line of people outside my office waiting to get in. And I was tough. I was a tough boss. This was at prosc hour. There was an HR type person who was responsible for problem partners like me to try to soften them up a bit. And she pulled me aside and really got me to see that I was not valuing the people who work for me in the way that I should. That was hard because until that moment, everything had always been a plus. You know, I was growing this big business. Everything was great. Things were going gangbusters. But I'd kind of forgotten that you want people to follow you, not because you're scary or disrespectful. And so, yeah, uh, I remember that conversation very well. I took it to heart, you know, but that was a tough one.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I certainly have had that same experience. I wouldn't say I was a tough boss, but I'm not somebody who personally needs a lot of positive reinforcement. I don't need a pat on the head. Uh, I don't need it at all. I don't.

Speaker C: I want a long time to realize. So when I was coming up, if I got placed on a team for, like, a hot deal, I was good. That's all the thank you. I needed. Like, I knew what that meant, and I just assumed that that next generation would feel the same way. But no, no, no. Like, that's not enough to just get put on the hot deal. You still have to, you know, it's a different, different mindset. And it did take me a while to get that, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I remember. And of course, I, you know, it's hard to break habits being a lawyer. Like, somebody would bring me a document, and I'd get my red pen out, and I'd start marking it up, and they would be so shook by that, Right? Like, I have people come in, say, oh, my God, you can't do that. And, like, I'm the head of the business, and I just took time to mark up your document and tell you how to do it, right? Like, that's. You're lucky I did that. But that's not how people saw it. They're not. They weren't used to getting criticism. So, yeah, look, our management styles had to evolve, and we started this conversation there that kids are different today, younger people are different, and. But I'm really glad I learned that lesson, because it's a big evolution, and I think it's sometimes something women really need to learn. One of the things one of my former partners said to me is, you know, he's like, you're always willing to step in and be the bad guy. And I hadn't realized that, but I kind of took the responsibility of giving people the bad news. And so he ended up always being the good guy. And, you know, like, yeah, like that.

Speaker C: You should say that. Because I remember, like, if somebody was struggling, I would often say, okay, give them to me. I'm going to work with them on this, and let's see if we can't turn this around. So I was trying to be the good guy. A lot of times it was not saveable for whatever reason. So I would be the last senior partner that they saw before it didn't work out. So I had this reputation of being that, oh, my gosh, she's so scary, you know? But it was actually the opposite. I was trying to save them. What can you do? I know.

Speaker B: What can you do, huh? So now I want to move to one of our favorite parts of moments that made her, which is our lightning round. I'm just going to ask you a couple of quick questions and get your response. So first is. Is there a great book or a show you've either read or watched recently that you would share?

Speaker C: So, Cormac McCarthy died about a year and a half ago. So for Mother's Day, my kids got me the entire collection. So I'm, uh, going through it again. That's what I'm doing right now. He was amazing. It takes the whole myth of the Wild, Wild west and turns on its head a lot of his books.

Speaker B: He's great.

Speaker C: I love him. He's my current Obsession.

Speaker B: Oh, that's great. Good choice. What's your cell phone? Wallpaper.

Speaker C: So my youngest son is hiking the Pacific Trail. They start in Mexico and they go to Canada. So he's in the middle of it right now. So there's a picture of him on a trail. Ah.

Speaker B: Uh, I love that. So if you had a career other than the one that you've had, what would it be?

Speaker C: Oh, definitely. I would love to write fiction. Yeah, I'm a little obsessed.

Speaker B: Is that on the game plan for you?

Speaker C: Maybe. I mean, what I'd really love to do some summer is go to the Kenyan workshop or the Iowa workshops and see how that goes.

Speaker B: We'll see. This is so funny, Robyn. We just have so many parallels. Like, I graduated in 82. We went to law school. We ended up in private equity, and that's one of my secret passions, is to write fiction. Yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, wow. When I was in high school, I was in love with this guy named James Dicke who wrote Deliverance.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker C: Uh, which turned into a movie, but he's actually a poet, and he's the one who really turned me on to poetry and fiction writing back when I was in high school. But he's one worth checking out. You don't hear about him. And then there's this other guy. There's him, and then there's this guy, Richard Russo, who did Empire Falls. So all three of them have sort of a similar vibe. That's kind of. I'm in that vibe right now. I mean, they're very macho writers, you know, so.

Speaker B: But Richard Russo is a great writer. Empire Falls, which took place in, you know, Valley.

Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah, you're right. That blue collar, I mean, that was sort of my background, too. Like, I remember when I was going to call, you know, now kids go to college and take them in college tours and this. And consultants and, you know, I remember going down and saying to my parents, like, I'm going to apply to three schools, so I need you to write three checks for the applications. They're like, you're only going to one school. Why are we writing three checks for the applicant? Like, that's the family I came from, and these writers came from that kind of family.

Speaker B: That is almost exactly what happened to me.

Speaker C: Uh, wow.

Speaker B: Same thing. I think I applied to three schools because my parents couldn't really afford to write all those app, you know, and

Speaker C: they just didn't know. I mean, my parents just didn't know.

Speaker B: My parents didn't go to college, so they hadn't been through the experience. Yeah.

Speaker C: Ah.

Speaker B: So are you a dog or a cat person?

Speaker C: Well, I have a cat, but I'm really a dog person. But unfortunately, I married someone who hates dogs, so.

Speaker B: Well, we've had both dogs and cats.

Speaker C: Uh, the one thing I didn't check, my husband has been a great match, but, man, I did not think to check about the dog thing. Now it's too late.

Speaker B: That's so funny. Oh, my gosh. So what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Speaker C: So, another one of my mentors, this guy named Dan Finkelman, who is a senior partner who taught me a lot when I was younger, I was working really late on something, and he came into my office, just looked at me and said, you know, these people aren't going to go to your funeral. Right. And then he just walked out.

Speaker B: That's a good one.

Speaker C: I'm not sure if I necessarily took the advice, but I take it more now than I did when he first gave it to me.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I guess it's a little bit of a play on. Like, in the last moments of your life, you're not going to be thinking about that PPM that you were.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's good advice. Well, this has been phenomenal, as I knew it would. I think I'm probably gonna see you. You too. I think I'm gonna have you back on. Or maybe we'll do a round table with a couple of our other buddies.

Speaker C: That would be funny.

Speaker B: So, anyway, well, I know you are off to visit your son down in dc.

Speaker C: They're having my first grandchild October. Um, I'm super excited.

Speaker B: So, um. How exciting. Well, and I'm leaving for France tomorrow, so I'm very glad that my last official act before I go was to spend time with you. Thank you, Robin. Um, for guest today.

Speaker C: Well, thanks for inviting me, and let's do it again sometime.

Speaker B: We will.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us today. Please note that the content in this episode is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment, legal, or professional advice. Views expressed are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of PE win. This content is the property of PE Win and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission. For full terms and disclaimers, visit pewin.org podcast disclaimer. Thanks again for listening, and we hope you'll join us for future episodes.