EUVC #266: Tom McGinn, General Counsel at Northzone on building high-functioning startup boards

Today we have Tom McGinn with us. Tom is the General Counsel of Northzone, a multi-stage venture fund with offices in London, Stockholm, NYC, Amsterdam and Berlin, that invests from seed to growth across Europe and the US.

Northzone closed a EUR 1 billion fund last year and has backed over 100 companies, including Spotify, Personio & Spring Health. Tom joined Northzone in 2021 from Cooley where he helped get the emerging companies team in Europe off the ground.

Watch the full interview on eu.vc 👀 and read our core learnings 🧠

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:03:09 - Lessons Learned from a Startup Experience
00:06:23 - European Approach to Advising High Growth Companies
00:09:34 - The Future of AI in the Legal Space
00:12:37 - The Difficulty of Reversing Company Negativity
00:15:41 - Building a High-Functioning Board
00:18:33 - The Value and Potential Destruction of Board Members
00:21:32 - Founders Treating the Board as Employees
00:24:25 - Awareness of Misalignment
00:27:38 - Strategic alignment and good cultural fit
00:30:36 - Managing Investor Departures
00:33:49 - Exceptional Leadership and Shoutouts to Female Founders
00:36:56 - Key Learnings for Founders
00:40:12 - Misalignment and liquidation preference
00:43:15 - Management Carve Out and Incentivization
00:46:36 - Tips for Emerging VCs
00:48:54 - Professionalism Amidst Technical Difficulties
00:49:29 - Europe as a model for the world's new beginnings