Kwan reflects on lessons learnt in her first few months as general counsel at a tech start-up
Canadian Lawyer checked in with Uber’s former legal director Kelly Kwan about her first eight months as general counsel at online car retailer Clutch, and how she has been managing hypergrowth at the tech start-up.
How were your first few months at clutch and how did you find the adjustment from your previous role at Uber?
New roles are always a bit of an adjustment, but the first few months have been great, with lots of new and interesting challenges
What lessons have you learnt as you built a legal department from the ground up at this tech start-up?
It is really around building processes for simplicity and scalability. It is currently just me on the legal team. We hope to expand one day but not in the near future.
How did you manage hypergrowth of the company during the pandemic, and what sort of challenges arose there?
For hypergrowth, it's really around scaling processes. Also, as the macro-economic environment has changed, it's about pivoting to manage new business objectives, which are a little bit more focused on profitability and a little less hypergrowth-oriented.
What legal matters and trends are currently top of mind for you?
Marketing is key. As a newer start-up, we're really trying to establish a brand and market presence, so those issues are really top of mind. As I'm becoming more aware and knowledgeable in the space, I’m also learning lots of things around stock options, and then there are the different aspects of employment law that I'm used to dealing with.
What are some of the initiatives that you've been working on during the past few months?
I have taken over responsibility for the HR function and so we've been building out a lot of core policies that were in place – and some that weren't in place – around health and safety, as well as some core employment policies.
What are your goals and priorities for next year?
We are really focused on employee engagement and retention, and so we're looking at a lot of initiatives around compensation, benchmarking and leveling, and really kick starting a high-performance program, which will help allow us to obtain and retain some of the top talent at clutch.
