John brings more than 15 years of venture capital and corporate legal experience to NVP. As General Counsel, John works closely with NVP investment professionals, co-investors, board members and portfolio company founders and CEO’s on a wide variety of legal activities across NVP’s global fund. In this role, John is responsible for deal structuring, advising NVP partners on portfolio legal issues, advising NVP portfolio companies on transactions and negotiations, fund structuring and administration and regulatory compliance across multiple geographies.
Prior to NVP, John was a partner at Cooley LLP specializing in securities and strategic transactions on behalf of emerging and public companies as well as venture capital and other private equity investors. During his tenure at Cooley, John advised companies and investors in the software, consumer, telecommunications, Internet, biotechnology, healthcare services, and medical device sectors. He has extensive experience in structuring and negotiating a broad range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, strategic transactions, and financings as well as counseling companies and their boards with respect to reporting requirements, corporate governance and general corporate matters. In 2008, John was recognized in Chambers USA as an "Up and Coming" leader in Capital Markets: Debt & Equity in California.
Prior to Cooley, John was a principal in the corporate finance department of W.R. Hambrecht & Co., an online investment bank, where he helped to design and develop a system for the public offering of securities through a "Dutch Auction" methodology. Previously, John was an associate in the business department of Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta, Georgia.
John received a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1995, graduating with distinction. He received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1992 with a concentration in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He graduated from Princeton with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. John is a member of the State Bar of California and the State Bar of Georgia.