The Architecture of Founder-Led Governance

About this talk

This lecture explores how founders retain outsized control through dual-class stock and other governance mechanisms, and how venture capital shapes board dynamics and provides support and constraints along the way. It will look at governance structures ranging from Big Tech to recent IPOs, tracing how these arrangements have evolved from the private phase through public markets across time.

Speakers

• Professor Elizabeth Pollman, Perry Golkin Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
  Elizabeth teaches and writes on a variety of topics in business law, with a particular focus on corporate governance, purpose, and personhood, as well as startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship. She practiced law at Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles and served as a clerk for Judge Raymond C. Fisher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She earned both her BA and JD, with distinction, from Stanford University.
• Professor Bobby Reddy, Professor of Corporate Law and Governance at the University of Cambridge and a J M Keynes Senior Fellow in Financial Economics
  Previously, Professor Reddy was a corporate partner at the global law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, dividing his time between the London and Washington D.C. offices. After leaving Latham & Watkins, Professor Reddy served as a senior consultant, and subsequently as a director trustee, of the charitable think-tank, Tomorrow’s Company. Professor Reddy conducts research on a variety of topical corporate governance, private equity, and company law themes, including matters relating to the efficiency, operation and innovation of the capital markets, and the real-world impact of regulatory approaches and policies. He is the author of the book “Founders Without Limits”. He has also been cited or quoted in numerous mainstream publications, including Bloomberg, The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Observer, City A.M. and Reuters.

Chaired by Dr Pedro Schilling de Carvalho, UCL Centre for Law and Finance Co-Director