Building Legal Ops From Scratch: Okta's Playbook with Kim Woodward

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)01:02
Kimberly, welcome to the show.

Kim Woodward01:04
Thank you so much, CZ. I'm so excited to be here and talk to you about all of these things. And I'm smiling and laughing because I'm just thinking through all the stories. The IPO stories, there's so many, but we'll we'll keep them PG, I think.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)01:18
There you go. wow, there that that that's a new one. I've never

Kim Woodward01:21
Well, especially more the s the swearing and the the the people getting upset and the late nights where you're like, I think I might commit a crime. but none no crimes actually happen.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)01:30
Amazing, amazing. a criminally well executed IPO. All right, so let's go. So let's talk about your origin story. So I remember Okta. Funny enough, I was at I actually invested in Okta's IPO. I was at Anki, a startup at the time, and our IT guy, Alex, who I'm still in touch with, just loved it, this particular software. And I'm like, okay, when you have a software that the expert loves, G C A I, but anyways, a software that the expert loves. you know, there's usually something good happening. So let's talk about about joining Okta in 2015. You were the third attorney. There was no legal ops function. You know, it was kind of just a lot of greenfield. So what led you to join? And then how did you, I guess, write your own JD or kind of figure out what the job was meant to be?

Kim Woodward02:22
Yeah, I think joining a small comp, I mean, a lot of people know this, right? Especially in the valley. You join these startups and it's all very theoretical, right? It's it's vibes and personalities at the end of the day, really, is what it's gonna boil down to. But for Okta, you know, it's a fun story. I actually negotiate, I was at a small boutique law firm. I was negotiating on behalf of a client against Okta, and the IT person was super jazzed about it. They were like, this is the coolest thing ever. I love it. Like, we're so excited. It's gonna do all these cool things. It's really gonna help the team. And I was like, I do not understand what you're buying. Tell me more stuff. I'm very concerned. What do they have access to? What are you giving them? he walked me through it from the tech side and got me super comfortable so that I understood it, did my calls, you know, and negotiations. Back and forth, had all the questions that I ended up inevitably getting asked after I joined as doing contracts. But I was able to get through it. We had a really good negotiation. It went well, wrapped everything up, totally done. Stepped away from that deal, didn't really think about Okta again for a minute. And then the sales rep reached out to me of all people and said, Hey, are you looking for a job? And I replied, I said, Absolutely not. No, I'm not looking for a job. very happy. I really like where I'm at. Like I'm working really closely with clients. How many young attorneys get to actually go on site, talk to clients, work directly with them. I'm not, I'm not going in house, I'm good, I'm happy. and she she messaged me, she's like, yeah, but just it doesn't hurt to talk, right? Just like we'd love to talk. And I was like, okay, fine. It it doesn't hurt to talk. And so long story short, I went through the whole process, very kind of difficult because it was end of quarter for my for my clients saying, I can meet at Calls at 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m., that's when I'm interviewing. I mean, I whatever. Went through the whole process. I'm not taking this job. I'm not taking this job. I'm not taking this job. And at the very end, after I'd met everybody, I was like, wow, I really like these people. They really are mission-driven, which is very important to me. The vision is there. I believed they were gonna IPO, which you know, everybody wants to, but you don't, you don't really know. Especially that point, we didn't know. I believe they were. I was like, man, I just don't think I can turn this down. and at that point, it was this back and forth debate and the and just a really funny quick story. The final clincher that finally like made me take this role is I lived in Mountain View at the time. Offices were in the city, and the person I was interviewing with on the legal team, she's I live in Los Altos, I take the train every day, it's super easy. I didn't want to drive into the city. That was really like the last thing where I was like, I don't wanna do this every day. She's like, No, we take the train, we'll take the train together. I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna take this job then. So if she had not mentioned the train, it's really silly, but had she not mentioned the train and said, Hey, we're gonna take the train together, it's easy, I've been doing it for a year and a half, I probably would not have taken the job. So fun fact for everybody, when those things come up, you never know what's gonna be that last thing that convinces somebody to join a company. In this case, it was I had a train buddy because I hadn't done it before.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)05:22
Love it. I love it. Yeah. A friend of mine is is an optometrist because she got you know glasses as a child and just really liked the doctor. And it was like, okay, you know, it's like you you see these like life-changing things. So did you know at the time you said IPO was on the horizon, but was there any kind of like either magic or something that you sensed that, you know, here you are 11 years later and you know, huge public company, long journey. And any any clues you had then?

Kim Woodward05:54
For me, I mean, cause I think when you talk to companies that size, they're always gonna say everybody wants to unless somebody really has a planned exit where it's not IPO and they're like, look, I wanna grow this to a certain point, we're gonna sell it. That's the and you know, anyone who does acquisitions knows that there's companies and founders who feel that way. And that's great. And they're usually pretty adamant and you know that and they're pretty upfront about it. I think everyone else says IPO, not really knowing what that means. So it's hard to assess on that s. So I say that to say it's really hard to assess on that side. If somebody's like, nah, we're gonna sell it, like they know they'll be really upfront with you. When they're gonna when they're they want IPO, that's that's everyone else. So I think for me, the way I sensed that was knowing that the founders, I could tell from talking, you know, when I heard from the founders and the other people who had been brought in that they were really working towards it. They were doing the work, and that was one of the things that was key was like what is the growth plan for the next, you know, whatever, six six to eighteen months for the team, for the people. And you could tell, you know, they were putting people in place, they were planning to hire a stock administrator. Well, you you don't necessarily Hire a stock administrator if you don't want to be actively administering your stock. And so those were the things that really stuck with me. Also, the GC was fairly new. I joined in October and he had joined, I think, in January or February, and they brought him in with a with a very strong corporate background. and he had been their counsel. He was actually their counsel who helped found do the foundation documents for the company. And you could just tell they were putting the people in place who wanted to who had who were hungry to do that, who wanted who wanted that experience, or had that experience in some way. And when you see those people being brought together, it's just a good indication. Of course, you know, nothing, nothing's promised in the world, especially when it comes to an IPO. And we were very lucky with timing, as is true with any company that does that. But, you know, I could just feel that people wanted it. And that was key for me.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)07:44
Excellent. so let's talk about the IPO. you were top for open source, which is interesting. So what was the issue and then how deep did you go and did it come up in the IPO?

Kim Woodward07:59
Yeah, this is a fun story and it kind of told it certain when people ask me about like what is an IPO like, which I get asked more often than I think is normal probably maybe maybe because not everyone's done it but this is one of my like stories that's just this is how things are crazy. So speaking of the GC, he pulled me aside one day and said like hey and I was super new I'd been you know a few months I don't know and said I saw I was looking at your resume and noticed you'd open source on your resume. I don't know much about it. Can you sit me down and tell me like what what is this? What do you do? What do you know? Like what's your background? And through happenstance I had very deep knowledge of open source from my prior jobs. I had I had put together policies, I had put together documents, I I had done all this work. And so I said, Well, do you want like the high level G C talk, you know, just talk track, or do you want me to like whiteboard this and get into it? And he was like, No, whiteboard and get into it. And I was like, All right, you ask for it. So I did. So 30 minutes I spent telling him all the things I knew about open source, all the things I had done, all of the disclosure documents I'd put together for past companies. one of them that did operating systems, so this was really important to include this information, do the disclosures. And he ended, he just kind of stared at me, he listened, he asked a few questions, and it I felt like I was maybe in front of the Supreme Court, just like getting a couple questions asked, and he's just staring at me. And I was like, Okay, are are you are you paying attention? Are we good? Like, where are we at this? and he ended. We end and he goes, Okay, I've learned two things from this discussion. I was like, okay, great, what are they? He goes, one, I never want to hear about this ever again. And two, you are now responsible for managing this for the IPO. And by the way, there's you need to go talk to the CTO, and there are gonna be, you're gonna talk to the underwriters, and you're gonna manage this piece of it, and you're gonna draft everything. And I was like, wait, pause, what did I just sign up for? I had no idea this was where this I was trying to be helpful. roll this back. I would like a time machine. I don't think I want to do this. but I didn't say any of those words. This goes back to the like redebating things and being like, what did I just do to my life? and wearing many hats. And I was like, you know what? Fine, I'll just I will f in my head, I'm like, I'll figure it out and like I will figure it out. Great, thanks. and that's where this is I will actually lead into this elevator story. So this is where the elevator comes in. So he says, okay, you need to go meet with a CTO and talk to and tell him that you need to do we I said we need to do a code scan. First thing first, we don't know what's in the code, I guarantee you. We have to do a code scan. Let's go do that. And I'd done many with many clients. It was actually, this was an offering that I had bundled up at my prior firm and I was offering myself. Like I had a code scan, code review offering that I had put together, because I knew this, I knew this area of law. And so I got meet CTO knowing full well, having done many of these engineers do not want to do this. It is a waste of time for them.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)10:42
Mm.

Kim Woodward10:42
It is lawyers getting in their business, it is conversations they hate, and they just wanna be, they just wanna be left alone. And I get it, my husband's an engineer, he mostly doesn't wanna know about law, legal things. Wants me to leave him alone, not in real life, but as it relates to like work and legal stuff. So yes, please.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)10:57
And I'll pause you for just one second. So open source for for the listeners who may not be involved in the area, it's essentially if you have a certain type of open source code in your code base, the risk is that the entire code base also becomes open source. So it's basically a question for IPO because what is a software company, the code and the kind of core of what it is can be at risk. So that's why it's an IPO level thing. All right. So with that aside, go ahead.

Kim Woodward11:25
Absolutely. And by the way, story for another day, I well on a prior team, my team killed an killed an acquisition because they had basically open sourced their code. And we were like, they don't have they don't have an IP.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)11:34
Wow. So it it is a it is it it does kill deals. Okay. So both

Kim Woodward11:38
Yeah.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)11:38
on the acquisition side and then it it can tank an IPO. So this this is a big deal. So so we're in the moment, we're walking in the elevator. Go.

Kim Woodward11:45
So I'm going to the CTR I'm scared again in the meeting. This is and we're not in the elevator quite yet. This is now a conference room. And he, I'm walking him through what we need to do. This is what it's gonna cost. This is what does. I'm fortunately, I'm actually very experienced in this area. I can do a lot more than other people. We're not gonna outsource this. I will do this. And I could just see his face getting angry and I could tell he was getting mad and he was like, We're not doing this. We've so much to do. And I could just feel it because I'd done so many of these. I'd worked with engineers and he just goes, I we're not gonna do this. And I was and I looked at him, I said, We are actually we are. We're gonna do this. it's very important and we have to do it. And I think you wanna go public, so we are. And we had a little back and forth and and I finally just said, You really you don't have a choice. We're doing it. And I kinda yelled at him a little bit. And this is this goes back to my comment earlier too. voices were definitely raised. And and I walked out and said, It I your opinion doesn't matter. It's happening. So assign somebody and get on board. And I went back to the G C and I said, Okay, just so you know, I just yelled at the CTO. I think you should be aware of that. He may come talk to you, but this is why he was, you know. We had a normal conversation. He started getting upset, raising his voice. I raised my voice too. And FYI that happened. So one of the many times I was like, I think I'm gonna get fired from this job. G C was like, Okay, I understand why, I know him, and that probably actually might have been not the worst approach. but like, thank you for telling me if anything comes up, I'll manage it. So I'm sure they talked. I actually don't know what happened, but somebody got assigned on their side. We ended up getting the the the stuff. And one of the things I told him during that call Or that conversation which will lead to the elevator was look, I know you're gonna hate this, I get it. And this was this was kind of towards the end before I I said, look, we're just doing it. But I've done many of these, and the thing I'm telling you, and I promise you, it's gonna I I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna be painful, it's gonna take time, it's gonna distract your team from other stuff. I'm not gonna lie to you. But what I can promise you is when we're done, you are gonna thank me. It's gonna take a minute, give me six months, you're gonna thank me, and you're gonna thank me because we are gonna find stuff in the code that you did not know was that was there. That was a mess for a variety of reasons. Reasons you're gonna refactor, you're gonna fix this code, and you're gonna be like, you know what, this actually benefited me and my team in a way I didn't realize. For forgetting aside the legal piece of it, and thank you. I'm glad we did it. And he and and importantly, he ended that conversation by saying, I will never thank you for this. I was like, All right, fine, whatever. I I I can't I can't help that. So the elevator, this is where the elevator comes into play. It wasn't even six months later. Sure enough, because every time you do a first code scan, anywhere I've ever worked or anyone I've ever worked with, you find stuff that people put in there, interns put in there, just stuff. You know, it's not necessarily bad, it's just kind of messy, right? And happens, and sure enough. They came back and said he came back and he said, Yeah, we did do a lot of refactoring. That was it was an interesting project. He did not thank me, but we were in the out there, and I said, I said, Okay, I I get it, you're not gonna thank me. That's okay. But you are now. This is your this is your thanking me and saying actually this was a good thing. And I also think he was grateful because we did do a call with underwriters where we covered this and he didn't have to answer anything. I did all of that conversation for him. I think he kind of looked at me a couple of times and said, Kim, we'll take that. And so in the end, he realized that this was valuable. In the end, and I knew he would because I'd done enough of this. But going into it, it was so painful. And that's that's what I say, those late nights in IPO when you're working with people who've never done this before and they're looking at the legal team, you're like, why are you I you want to go public. I have to build a product. I've got to sell product. I've got to, you know, clean up these operations. We've got to put this together. And you're like, no, let's go dot some I's and cross some T's. They will not thank you for it. But it's super critical and it's the stuff you need to have a really clean process. And to get through it, you just need to do it.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)15:41
So many interesting threads there. So I I learned I was in London for a JC dinner recently and someone told me, and I should have known this because I had lived in London, said that when people say that's interesting, they kind of mean like, yeah, I'm not doing that or like I I'm not I'm not into it. So like it's funny that that that that came through. But is it one of these like like so how did you in that moment, how did you like kind of like know how it would turn out? Like you're just like you had the experience and then like you know, getting that sort of personal satisfaction or or the kind of like, cause cause I think, you know, in tech there's this idea of like these visionaries and, you know, being a very engineering driven company. And obviously we talked about how Okta had great product. And you know, I've been at companies where it was even like we're engineering centered and it was like, well, what the rest of us do? But how did you like how did you have the motivation, find the motivation, and then, you know, get to this point where you're kind of like laughing about it.

Kim Woodward16:42
For I would say for that one, that piece of it, it was certainly experience. I I really knew how it was gonna end up. I mean, I guess there were of course there's always instances where things don't go the way you plan. But I had done enough of these code scans and enough reviews and and and I knew engineers and I had worked with so many that I knew it and I could talk to the engineers. That was key too. So I do think that's a unique piece for me in this because I have an engineer husband. I had engineer friends, you know, when I went to even undergrad, like I lived next door to engineers. And so I had a a deep background with with the engineering community and could talk their talk and and not not to the degree they can, of course. Like I'm I'm not an engineer and I would never say I am, but I could at least have meaningful conversations with them. And so I think that was key. And that kind of goes to my philosophy for everything. And I think we'll touch on this later, but is you can't just be the lawyer in the ivory tower who's spouting legalese at people. They don't get it. They don't, especially like engineers. They don't get it. They don't want you there. They don't need you in their business. They just want to know because that's how engineers think, like what they need to do and how they can do it, and what is the best way to do that. And they'll do it. You tell an engineer we have to do this and this is how and this is why. The why is key because they always want to know why. But they will, they will do the things that they need to do. And that was part of it was really being able to have those conversations with them and say, hey, look, I understand, and I said that to the CTO too. Like, I understand this is taking away from important work that you need to do. I totally get that. I appreciate it. But this is also important work that we need to do. You want to go public, I wanna go public. We all would like our stock to be worth something. and so we have to do these things, they're just mandatory. and that was a big part of it was was really managing that part of the conversation and knowing that we get through it. And then some of it is just like, you know, I mean I was 10 years younger, so probably I was less tired. and also you know, I don't want to say naive because I certainly wasn't at that point. I I had to have my eyes opened many times, but a little bit of like, well, we'll just get it done. We'll just we'll just do it. It'll be fine.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)18:42
What so fast forward a little bit. it's twenty eighteen. you've been a public company for a year. And I think this was when legal operations was kind of thinking clock was founded, perhaps around this time, maybe a a few years prior. what did you see that made you wanna start a legal operations function?

Kim Woodward19:07
Yeah, so this is a super interesting. It's something I had already been thinking about when I joined. When I was at my boutique law firm, one of the things I helped put in place and manage was some of the law firm practice management. I got us a new s a new billing system, a new timekeeping system, you know, did that whole RFP and proof of concept because we had something that was super old and I hated it and it was it was mostly to help me to be honest. But convinced, you know, the the owner of the firm to be like, hey, let's do this. And it Something I had already gotten into was the idea of the business behind legal, and that legal at the end of the day is a business. whether you're you're outside counsel, you're in-house, your department is a business, it is a business business unit. And I'd been thinking about that. You know, I came to do, I was doing a lot of lawyer work because that's what I was there to do, doing contracts, IPO, all the legal stuff, and and there weren't very many of us, so we wore a million hats and did kind of a little bit of everything. But I'd been thinking about it for a while, and I went to our GC and I said, Hey, look. I think, you know, we need and and at this time pre-IPO, we had also at at Okta, I had selected and put in place a contracts management system with CLM. And because we needed we needed it for the IPO, just to say we had somewhere to put things, all that stuff. And so I went through that process and I said, I think we need an actual legal ops department. And by the way, I think I should run it and you should move me into this role. his first response was legal ops is not a thing. And I was like, no, I sure I assure you. I assure you it's real. I promise it's a thing. It's it's a real thing. And he was like, I don't think it is. and that was kind of the end of that conversation. And I was just like, well, okay. I guess that went okay. And then and maybe we're not gonna do it, but whatever. he came back to me maybe two weeks, a month, not sure, somewhere in that time period, and said, Hey, guess what? I talked to my colleagues, the the many GCs that I meet with, you know, all the all those secret GC groups that we all hear about that people are in. G C and CLR groups where they they get together. And he goes, Legal ops is a thing. And I was like, yep, I did I did in fact know that. But thank you. Thank you for confirming that you now know that it is also a thing. And he said, and I'm I'm interested, I'm kind of intrigued. I learned more about it. Why don't you put together a pitch for me on what if you were to do this, what would it be and why should it be you? so it was kind of and I knew him well enough at that point to know, okay, this is this is two things. He wants me, he he wants me to sell him on the idea of legal ops, but even if I do, he's not necessarily giving me the job. It might be somebody else's job. So I need to think about this in two ways. Like, I think we need legal ops, and that's not about me. And so I need to be very convincing here and persuasive because that this isn't about me. And I think as a team, we do need this. The other side was, I want to do this. I want this job. So how do I

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)21:48
Yeah.

Kim Woodward21:48
how do I do this in a way that's like I am the one? Like, yes, we need it. I'm the one who will do it. so I put together my deck. I looked at it maybe a couple years ago and it was so embarrassing. I can't even tell you, Susie. Like I looked at it, somebody had asked for it. And I was like, great, I'm gonna go pull it up. Like I in my mind it was amazing. It's this great deck I put together, spent so much time.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)22:09
compelling, yes, exactly. Yeah.

Kim Woodward22:11
Yeah, because woman it worked, right? So obviously it was amazing.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)22:13
I mean the thing is it's like, you know, I we we run into this with AI a lot where, you know, I I there was a joke on on on Twitter or something or or LinkedIn that was like, you know, we're an AI native law firm. And I'm like, that's kind of like just a law firm, you know? And so like now it's like this idea that legal ops was this new thing and it's like, of course legal runs like a business. I'm like I like I'm like craving like what what what what did it used to be? Like the closest that I can think of. was, you know, it's a law firm where I had an incredible mentor and I did IP litigation. And one of the things she said, she said, you know, you can bill it, but I'll I'll write it off. But you should every just about month in the case, you should reread the full patent start to finish, and let it wash over you. You know, so like that was cool. That was a, you know, maybe a relic of of the of the billable hour that she, you know, she couldn't bill for that. But This idea of like that actually just thinking was like, you know, enough and the rest would take care of itself. You know, that's legal ops is not that, right? So so like I guess for you at this time, you were already a public company. What was the bulk of the work? Was it deal work? And then, like, you know, I'm imagining like like walk us down memory lane of that deck. And then what is the like, what is the value of legal ops look like today? I'll admit, Kim, like when you said you had 15 people in legal ops, that's bigger than we usually see. And so like tell me what the team does now and then a little bit of memory lane on that deck. I'm I w I wanna go down that rabbit hole a little bit longer.

Kim Woodward23:46
Sure, I love the idea of a patent washing over you. I can't really visualize how that happens right now. I

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)23:51
Yeah.

Kim Woodward23:52
I do have an IP background, like I have an IP certificate from Santa Clare Law. And like the idea of a patent, I the reason I don't practice IP law is because a patent could never wash over me.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)23:59
Yeah. Well that's the thing, is like it was literally it was a pharmaceutical proteins and it was like she's like, every time you read it, you will notice new things. And she's correct. Like it really is like reading a classic where

Kim Woodward24:09
Sure.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)24:09
it's the entire thing that you're litigating. Like patents, I love being a patent litigator, partly because it's like you literally get to argue the meaning of words. And I'm just like, I can't think of anything now in this AI world. Like when people are like, Are AI and is AI and legal a good fit? I'm like, well, I've had a patent wash over me. So yes, exactly. So anyways, go ahead. Sorry sorry.

Kim Woodward24:27
I love it. Well I'm gonna go back to memory lane. but I love that that segment 'cause I love that because it's that tangent because it was amazing. I'm gonna I that's gonna stick with me for sure. Pat and wash, I don't know.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)24:37
Yeah.

Kim Woodward24:38
I'm definitely gonna bring it up at some point. But so back to the memory lane, I have this terrible deck that at the time I thought was amazing and apparently was good enough. So I presented it to him, long story short, and said, Look, here's why we need it. Here, here's why it makes sense. I pulled up at the time the clock wheel for anyone who doesn't know what that is, they still have it. It's it's the wheel of competency for legal operations. There's 12 areas, and I kind of used that and said, Look, here's all the things that that this role, this team should do. And this is what we need and where we are right now. These are the things, these are the gaps. And frankly, a no lawyer who's doing legal work has time to do it. And this is its own discipline and specialty. and the re and then I went into the reason I think I should do it, which is like, hey, I have this background, I've already been doing this work here, I know all the legal side. I don't believe you need to be a lawyer to do legal ops, but I do believe that in certain cases it can be really helpful. In this case, it was very helpful. And so I did the presentation. He he needed time to think about. And I don't know, like again, like maybe two weeks, a month later, we went and got lunch at at a Thai restaurant that doesn't exist anymore in San in San Francisco. And that's when he told me that yes, we need legal ops. And after talking and consulting with a lot of people, he felt like my personality, the way I'd put all the things, like I was the one to do it. So I was thrilled talking about the headcount, I immediately asked for two headcount. And that was part of my presentation. And I share this when I mentor other like start up starting up legal ops leaders, which is one of the key things that I did and I've done my whole time as a legal ops leader is knowing what I can do with what I have and using those core competencies to say, here's the things I can do because I have these people and I have and I have this much time and whatever. But here are all the things I can't do. And I think that part is just as important. And this isn't just for legal ups. I think this is for business and this is for being a lawyer too. I can do all these things with myself and with as much headcount. But here's all this other stuff, and it's super important, but I cannot do it. It's not as important as the stuff over here. But like it's gonna become more important, and we need people to do that, and I can't do it without them. And so I've always kept that running tab. And one of the things I focus on too is when people on the team start telling me, we need this, we need this, we need this, I pull that back up and say, hey, I'm I'm hearing it. It's time. And I never take on, I feel very strongly about this, take on work and just say, you know what, I'm just gonna do it that I know I can't handle. I have a friend who jokes, he does Iron Man's, and he jokes, why be good at one thing when you can be mediocre at three? and it's ex

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)27:07
Yeah.

Kim Woodward27:08
it's exactly like that. I've never run an Iron Man. So if anyone is listening and you don't feel that way about it, I'm very sorry. But it makes sense to me, right?

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)27:17
Like with Iron Man, I'm like, it makes sense they put the swimming first. And I was like, why do they do that? They're like, Well, you don't want people to be so tired and you know, not be able to swim. You're like, all right. Anyways, okay. No, that's amazing.

Kim Woodward27:26
I think it's amazing.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)27:27
Like, I mean, you're amazing at all. Okay, so all right. So so you make the case, you get the head count approved, too. All right.

Kim Woodward27:33
Yes, so that's the so my first two heads was it he was partially a lawyer, so he came in to do he's actually the person that does just the Ironman. he came in to do to do legal work, but to help me on some of the stuff. And then I hired a contracts manager because we had a system now in place. We were or we weren't it wasn't right quite in place. We'd selected, we were building the CLM and I needed somebody to run and manage it. And I was, by the way, I was still lawyering at this point. So my role to start LegalOps was fractional at best. and I was still doing contracts. That was true for the first couple of years for me of Legal Ops until we finally broke out and it became its own function. and then we grew from there because same thing. It was, you know, as the team grew, we needed more things. We needed an e-billing platform, and I needed somebody to manage it. We had more contracts, we needed to add to the contracts management team. I and by the way, for why my team's so large, that's part of it. Contracts management sits under me. and that is that's you know a chunk of the team. but and then as I was doing all the technology, as technology continued to grow, we had more tools. I needed somebody to come help me. now she has two people under her, one person doing the general technology, working with our IT team, managing all that. And this year we just added an AI person. So now we have somebody focused solely on AI, our strategy, our tools, implementing them, keeping them on the rails, all of those things. And so it's exactly that same story. You know, why do we have an AI person? Well, because everyone else is busy. They all have their full-time job. Everyone's doing AI, of course. You know, we can talk about AI, but I think people are kind of tired sometimes of talking about AI. But Everyone's so busy. I needed somebody who could just think about this. I need you to just think about this. This needs to be what you wake up in the morning and you log in and sign into Okta and think about all day is what are we doing here? How are we doing it? It cannot be You know, a paralegal. I hear a lot of stories where it's basically a paralegal who moonlights as your AI person on nights and weekends. That's not the moment we're in right now. You need somebody who can think about this. And I can think about it a lot, but not as much as I would like. And I need that thought partner too. And so that's how I've really grown the team is like, hey, I see this space. It needs attention. And we don't have to do it. I mean, like, that's always the argument to say, like, if there's something more important, let's put our money there. You know, I'm chief of staff, so I I really do have to manage that that balance. But here's how this helps the team. how this frees up lawyers. This is how it, you know, makes everyone's lives better. This is why there's value. This is the ROI. And I think if you're a lawyer who can think like that and talk the talk with the other business leaders, talk the talk with the finance team, it you can be a lot more successful at getting these things, the headcount and the things you need.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)30:13
Well so so we never we're never w what is it the I'm gonna have another expression on AI. You said people are a little tired about AI. I agree, sometimes it does feel like noise, but you've got this unique experience of having seen kind of the birth of Legal Ops as a function and then now kind of AI legal ops. So I wanna tell me what your charter is for this person and what they're doing.

Kim Woodward30:36
So Their charter really is to be creative and be cutting edge, right? She is actually like in Claude doing stuff. I do have a belief that, you know, point solutions are important, but we can do a lot of work with what we have in place. And it's frankly, it's expensive. So it's figuring out and being really thoughtful. And this is part of her responsibility. When do we need a point solution? When can we work within what we have, what's already provided that's company wide? How can we manage that? You know, six months ago no one was really thinking about the bill. I think that's that has shifted in the last few months and news cycles. But where do we need solutions that are actually going to be? legal dedicated solutions that can't be solved elsewhere. And so that's one of the things that we're thinking about really heavily is like what tools are very unique and that we need for us. Again, same as every other business unit. And what is our strategy and how do we become this modern AI-driven, AI first, whatever you know, buzzword of the day you want to use, legal department, because I really believe, you know, people have been saying and and I'm not unique, so this isn't coming from me. But Humans are not getting replaced from by AI. We are gonna work together and it's thinking about what is the stuff that we can offload that is so mind-numbing, so painful. not a good use of time and that we can have, you know, the tools and the systems do that, which by the way is no different from any tool or system we had before AI. We bought tools and systems to automate. We bought tools and systems to put processes together and to build those out so they would be more streamlined. AI is doing the exact same thing. It's just doing it faster and better in a lot of ways and can meet better needs. So I don't see any difference, frankly, between AI and old tools in that, in that way. Obviously there's a million million differences, but in the way you think about it for me is this is a new technology. It's moving us forward and how do we embrace it so that we can be better lawyers.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)32:34
How do you prevent this person or or how do you empower this the rest of the team when you know there is that it's always a debate in privacy? I've seen this in privacy as well, where it's like if you have one person doing privacy, is everybody else like, I don't do privacy? So if you've got like this AI expert, is everybody else, like how do you still get everybody else, you know, experimenting, using it, coming up with ideas?

Kim Woodward33:02
I will say Fortunately or unfortunately, as you grow a legal team for anyone who's done that, our legal team is now nearing a hundred. That does happen, and you start to see that, like, well, I'm the person. And I think that's keeping people to understand that you still need enough knowledge to be able to answer questions and know who to point to. So, like as chief of staff, I work about I work on that a lot. And with our our CLO, for the team to to have understanding of what everyone does. Not deep understanding, but a little bit so that they can be, you know, just a little dangerous and nowhere to go. so One of her tasks is actually to train the team. And so we have legal AI. One of our KPIs for the year is that we're having two legal AI days a quarter. And we did one that I would say landed with maybe the like most advanced people of the team, scared a little bit of the people in the middle and like lost everybody at the beginning. But it was kind of nice because it scared a lot of people. And they realized, you know. I think everyone's realizing that everyone's behind. It really doesn't matter where you are on the AI curve. I feel like I'm somewhere in the like middle, maybe. And I feel like I'm super behind. Maybe I'm a little above that. I don't know. but if you're doing nothing, if all you've done is had a, you know, had Gemini write you an email, like it's a good wake-up call to see what other people are doing and understand that you can't even understand the conversation that's happening. and so while There was a very big difference of opinion in that first one about how that landed and and if if it helped or didn't. My feeling on it was I thought it was a wake-up call for some folks to realize, hey, I don't even understand these words. I don't even know what an MCP is. Like I don't even know, like I don't know what I don't know what Claude is, like things like that. I mean, I don't think anyone's quite there. That's probably an exaggeration. But they didn't a couple people didn't know how to access our our enterprise version. You've could because you've never touched it. So I do think some of it is getting those people to wake up and realize. this isn't going away and you need to start playing with it and you start using it and the value and then hearing one of the things we're doing and this person's doing is pulling together all of our use cases. The beauty of AI is that everyone can do it. It's like very democratic. Everybody's getting access. We can all use it. And we're all building our own things. The difficulty, and I won't pitch for anything on Okta, but y'all have to go look at our website and see what we're offering related to AI, because just FYI, Okta secures AI, and and my marketing team can now love me. But It's really hard to know what people are doing because they're just doing it on their own. They're building it, they're doing it, and it's super cool. It's really helpful. It would help other people. But unless they tell somebody about it, no one knows. So one of the things that we're working on, and I won't say it's easy, it's really hard because actually people, especially lawyers, don't always want to share their brilliant ideas. but we're trying to to figure out what are the things that we can then build for the whole team. Okay, you have this really cool idea, it's helping you do one thing, but if we extrapolate that and we build it for the whole team, it can actually do 20. things and you're not going to build that because that's too hard. But my person on my team can do it. So that's one of the that is the the ultimate vision. We're working on putting that list together, but people are doing really cool stuff. and we're trying to get people to help and work and teach each other. So it's a little bit of experimentation. It's a lot of creativity and it's a lot of encouraging lawyers to share and non-lawyers too because we have a lot of you know non-attorneys on the team too and legal professionals, but share the work. Lawyers are not trained, you know, from law school to share their work. So that is something we're also fighting against. We have a really good culture on our team. So I think it's better than other places. But I hear from my colleagues elsewhere I talk to them and they're like, nobody wants to share their work because it's their brilliant genius thing. and I think on the other side too, I know for myself, I'll just be a little vulnerable for a second and say, like, I don't want people to judge me either, because I don't like everyone else, I'm learning, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing, and I don't want somebody to see it. I with the person on my team, she we did one live where she's like, just show me what. You're doing showing me how you're building it. I was trying to build an agent and I was like, my God, I don't want you to watch me. You're gonna judge me, and I think I'm stupid. How am I gonna do this in front of you? And she's like, I'm not gonna judge you. I just want

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)37:05
I think it's

Kim Woodward37:07
to I wanna see how you're thinking about it. And I think it's that that vulnerability to be willing to say, like, let's learn together, and we're all gonna make mistakes, and you might feel silly or dumb or whatever, which is really hard for legal people, but that's okay. Like, everybody is learning this.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)37:22
So you said a couple things. So you mentioned I I think you used the word terrified, but you said half the team was scared in this training. So that that's a decent, that's a good segue. so first of all, plug, of course, GCAI, we do these classes and we've gotten pretty good at this. So if you're if you're hearing this, like, my gosh, how do I run a you know legal AI hackathon or a prompting party or whatever, like we we we offer that, so reach out. But secondly, this idea that people are terrified of AI. Like you have this framework for just in-house in general. And I suppose it it extends to ups as well. But there's kind of three hats, right? The lawyer hat, the human hat, the business hat, let's just throw in a technologist hat. You know, someone who comes to your training and doesn't know what MCP is, there's worse things. They're not stupid. Like what you know, so so how do you like? How do you bring the humanity and then like tell us about this Hats framework?

Kim Woodward38:23
Yeah, and I think you know, just to lay that out. I think sometimes as lawyers and any business person, you forget that we're we're all human beings, right? And so that's one of the hats that I talk about putting on is the human hat, is remembering that we are just people, right? Like even the CEOs of the world, and and you know, you see, I I this one thing I really respect from this younger generation. We were just talking about this. I'm gonna I'm gonna do a big tangent for a second, but I was talking about this with a a senior attorney on the team literally yesterday in the office. one of the interns reached out to him and just slacked him and said, Hey, I'm thinking about I might want to do law at some point. Can we meet? my God, I would have we were stroking. We would have never done that. No way. When I was young, would I have messaged a junior person on the or a senior person on the team and been like, you let's go get coffee. And they do that to the CLO. I get them too. And it's like that gumption and that willingness to just take that shot, you know, shoot your shot. I think that's what the kids say. and to just do it. Like I love that because at the end of the day, we're all people. We're just humans.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)39:23
Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah. Well that was

Kim Woodward39:25
Like

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)39:26
that was a powerful realization for me and and led to me me to become a founder was having worked for founder CEOs who were really, you know, sort of larger than life, right? I worked for Bezos and then I worked for Kyle Vodacruz and you know, Amjad at Replit and working with them closely enough to have that realization of like they are humans, right? They want, you know, their latte or they you know Want to be able to do their cold plunge, whatever it is. Like just like, or or they want they they have they can have be bored in a meeting, they can whatever, you know, all these kind of very human things. And I mean, the fear one in particular, I feel, you know, I I tell this story a lot that I my mom, grandma, and great grandma were all teachers. And this idea that like lawyers are really smart, I actually think that's like a huge boon for AI, is that like, know, now what is it? The hottest new programming language is English. And so just like you showed that, you know, a quarter of the room was able to go ahead and create their own workflows and things with AI, you know, I I I think that's you know, being able to to show up and be and and and make people not feel like so scared. I think is it it sounds like maybe you did a second one and then it was like this like you threw in the pool. So did the second training go better?

Kim Woodward40:44
Yeah, well that so I will I will share briefly like so that was actually the first one we did it was before our off site. So we have a legal global summit off site that that happened in Montreal in May. And so we did this like, I don't know, a week before, two weeks before. And it was kind of to wake them up because there was a session where at tables they were gonna brainstorm together. And so it was a chance to realize, like, no, you need to engage with this and you need to know these things. And so, and and now we are doing more virtually, but it was right before that. And people came up with really cool ideas. And some of the ideas, like, and they didn't need to know this, we're already planning to implement, we already have things in process, but that was the point was to collect everyone's ideas. And even if we were already working on things or thinking about them, they had nuances to that that we had not thought about. And so the way that worked, it was really fun from a suggestion to somebody on the team. It was like Shark Tank basically. we called the the panel the council council. and so, so ultimately we got to ask some questions, the final three that were selected through votes, the top three, they came and did a presentation, they got one night to prep that together. Shockingly enough, most people, anyone who did a deck used AI. As I fully expected them to. and they were really good. It was fun. People were funny. They got to pitch it. And we picked one. And and the winners all got some. We have points here that you can use to go buy stuff. so everybody got points who on the winning team. And I actually ran over all over Montreal a few days before and made little gift bags. They all got a gift bag too of of Canadian stuff, some like candies and syrup and things. And and then we're gonna build it. So the thing won, and we're literally putting our our you know, money as it was where our mouth is, and we're we're gonna build that thing. So it was really exciting for people to have those conversations in person, live with the whole team and really kind of work through that. And that's where I talk about that human part, right? Like we can all sit there and brainstorm and be on a screen and all those things. But sitting in a room together and really thinking through it and thinking through like what can we do to help this team? How can we make things better? And I would say most of the presentations and most of the ideas weren't things that were going to benefit Most of the people at that table because we'd mixed up all of the different legal groups. They were things that maybe at that table is gonna benefit one person or nobody, but they were things they knew would benefit the legal team broadly and would have good impact. And those were the things that that ended up being the winners, for sure, the top three. So, again, that human aspect of like get out of yourself, get out of your day to day, and think about like what is gonna help us collectively. We're all humans who just want to work together. And whoever it is, you know, whether it's a leader or that junior person who's reached. reaching out to you. Like they they took a shot because they're just a human trying to reach out to human to get some help. and I think we forget that as we as we become leaders and also especially in the legal pro profession.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)43:32
Love it. so let's talk about the business hat for a moment. you're a big proponent of lawyers learning how to read a P L, of kind of thinking about the cost of things. Let's look at the psychology a little bit of like put me when you're deciding, you mentioned matter management, but you're deciding how to staff something. For us, you know, we at GCAI, we are not the cheapest legal AI. we are competitive and now we have case law. So I think we we're certainly a good value, but we have people very regularly tell us that, you know, we should charge in a month what we charge in a year, that their ROI is immediate, like, you know, very stuff like that. But one of the points that came up or that I think has caused me not to want to be cheaper and is actually, you know, possibly reflected in different business models that we may have go forward is that companies are used to paying more for better legal services, right? Like you might decide, okay, we're gonna gold plate this, we're gonna go with you know, AMLO5 firm, or we're going to You know, I I talked to one GC that had an FTC matter, another and was just like, we're gonna use, you know, a very expensive boutique as opposed to to something more cost effective. And that decision point, like, how do you how do you make that as a company? And then, you know, knowing how to read a PL is obviously like, you know, maybe it's table stakes, but like, how do you turn that into legal decisions?

Kim Woodward45:09
So the business side for me, I'm gonna tell a quick story because I think it really shows my evolution on this. Cause I didn't come into this, I don't have an MBA, I didn't come into this with a business background, I didn't be like, yes. So I used to say, and now I tell people to never say this, and I would like go back and slap me for saying it in the past. But I used to say, I went to law school, not math school. People would like put things with numbers in front of me, I'd be like, I don't, I don't know what this what is this? Like, take it away. I I don't know this. That's not that is not my background. Go away. And I realized, you know, and obviously moving into legal ops and then the chief of staff will really help that. One, this isn't this is stuff we should know. Like it is part of our business as as lawyers and especially as legal leaders. and and as people on a legal team, you should want to know this. You should want to understand how the business works that you're supporting and like what those things are. And in running your legal team and your legal business, you should want, you need to know these things. It's incredibly important. And so I still hear I'm doing this GC boot camp through chips, and and I've I've, you know, slightly admonished a couple of the people who've been like, I don't know numbers, I don't do numbers. And like, well, if you want to be a GC, guess what? You do do numbers. Stop. Saying that, take that out of your vocabulary. Because I used to say it all the time. And when you talk to business people, they you do numbers. You just do. And by the way, you probably know a lot more than you think you do. You're just nervous about it. It goes back to that human element, element. You don't want to, you feel like you, well, I'm not an accountant, I'm not an MBA. That's fine, nobody's asking to be. Nobody thinks you are that. But you know enough, and then you can ask questions. Again, we're all humans and say, hey, I don't know that piece. Can you explain it to me? The number of times I've asked my FPNA team, you know, hey, I don't, I don't get this. What is that? It's a lot and I think that's totally normal and natural and you should do that. And that's how we learn. You nobody knows everything. So, anyways, that's all to say that learning that stuff and understanding, you know, what if you know, the number of lawyers who are like, I don't know what ROI even stands for. those are the things

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)46:58
No.

Kim Woodward46:59
like you need to learn that and understand, especially if you're gonna be leading a team or managing budgets, to understand like what are you really getting for this value? And the reality is all business units and all companies are doing more or less, especially the legal teams. We are All being pressured to do more with less. And so it's figuring out where is the ROA, right? Like this thing, everything you do costs money, whether it's using outside counsel, buying a tool, hiring headcount, getting a contractor. What is really going to give you the bang for your buck? And that's sometimes it's not the cheapest thing. I think we all know this from our personal lives. You know, when you buy the cheapest thing, sometimes it falls apart in you know a month. And now you're just buying the same thing again. You're like, damn, had I bought the more expensive thing, it would have lasted me, and now I've just wasted money. And so that's one of that is the calculation I'm constantly doing. And I'm trying to impress upon my own team and the broader team and the folks I mentor to say, like you have to do this, this calculation in your head to say, what am I trying to get out of this? And that's the same thing too. You know, people buy software, and and I don't think we've been super guilty of this, fortunately, where they're like, there's all these features, it's so cool. Well, you're not, are you gonna use those? I don't know, but they're cool. Okay, well then they don't matter. So you just bought 20 features, they're bundled, that's amazing, but you're not gonna use any of them. And sure, they're free, they're bundled, but you are paying for them. Then nothing in nothing in life is free. And so what do you really want? If this is all you want and you don't have any plan to grow in this, get the best value and the best deal you can get for this because this is the thing you actually need. That's the thing you actually want. And people forget that because they see the shiny things and they're but this is shiny. I'm like, it is, but are you gonna use it? No. So So who cares? Who cares that it's shiny?

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)48:42
I think the usage metric though it is an important one. Where I like I think what you're asking is like, are you gonna use it as important? But I actually think like the feature sprawl, like so we at at GCAI, we've been able to win a lot of deals against more featureful benchmark products because people use the core thing so much. Like essentially like this idea of like implementing it into your workflow and like doing that. But like let's let's let's take a non-AI example. Let's take an example of like Like you're staffing in employment matter and you're deciding on on council. What do you what do you advise your people?

Kim Woodward49:20
So that's so hard because but with and I'm just gonna take I know you want me to get deep into it. And fortunately I don't have to deal with employment, but it's always for me. It's like what first the first thing is what can we do with what have? For anything, what can you do with what we have? We got in-house attorneys. Can they do this? Okay, no, they can't because it's a jurisdiction that we just don't have somebody we don't know. It's super com it's the Netherlands, whatever, you know. I say that

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)49:41
Yeah, yeah.

Kim Woodward49:41
because dealing with the Netherlands, I don't wanna hire anyone there ever again. nobody hold that against me. It's very difficult. but Okay, we need an expert. Like, we don't have it in-house. So but but step one for whatever it is is can we do this in-house? Do we have the skills? Do we have the tools? Same with software. Everyone wants to go buy the bespoke tool that does that thing. Okay, but do you have a tool that does 90% of that thing? Do you have a tool that does 70% of that thing? Can you bridge that gap? Or does that 70% get you close enough? Because by the way, it does 70% of the thing you want and you were only gonna do 80% of what the the bespoke tool did. Well, okay, you only have a 10% gap. Is it really that important? People forget this. And so these are the things that I like always query my team about, like when we're going to invest and we're talking about ROI, is what does that look like? So, but let's say we can't do it in-house, like we don't have the skills, we don't have the tool, we don't have the whatever. Then it's okay, what are we really, what do we really need to do, and where do we get the expertise? But at the end of the day, my opinion is once you've decided what exactly we need and what exactly that is, we you gotta stay within budget. So I'm not gonna say you can't do that, but then to go get the best thing you can. get for that money. So if you know we have to go out, we have to get this thing, this is what we need. We understand what it is. We have a budget. Okay, now go get the very, very best thing you can because you now you want to going back to my story about like if you buy the cheapest thing and it falls apart, you want the thing that's going to really give you that ROI. And that's going to be the best thing in that space. Now assessing that is difficult, right? Because you can the price tag doesn't always determine how good something is. But that's where you know what me having a team that does that and having somebody dedicated to tech who goes out and does RFPs and runs them and stuff. We really pressure test all these things when we're working on that.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)51:32
I love it. All right. you so let's talk about careers for one second. So you've obviously had this incredibly varied career, have strong, strong points of view across a lot of things. what has kept you at Okta? And then you're also part of Chips. So we had Malin Yen on the on the podcast. She's, you know, definitely an incredible idol, has moved beyond being a lawyer, but still has a lot of those lawyer lawyer qualities. what What's kept you at Okta and what's next for you?

Kim Woodward52:03
So what's kept me at Okta, and this shockingly enough, probably not shocking, is when I interview people, because I do a lot of the interview, you know, interviews for the legal team and cross-functionaling. That is like the number one question people ask me. They're like, why, why, why have been here so long? And on one hand, I think they're just curious. On the other, it's a real question. When you're joining a company, you want to know, like, if somebody stayed, that's a good sign. And the

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)52:22
Yes.

Kim Woodward52:22
answer for me, and it's really honest, is it's been like being at multiple companies. You know, I was here pre-IPO, we had an IPO, we've grown a ton, not many companies. make it to where we're at right now, to be honest. And so like I've always felt that I was learning and growing. My role has shifted. my prior GC, who was here when I started, left four years ago. and when he did, my colleague actually took over. She was the succession plan. And It was a it was a new thing, right? It was like getting a new leader. We, you know, did a lot of work to to work on the team and restructure and move it to the design structure she wanted for that work. And that's kept me here because I hadn't I haven't needed to go somewhere else to get that growth and that opportunity. I know that's not true everywhere, but it's absolutely been true at Okta. and something that I've always enjoyed about our culture here is that you can always raise your hand and it goes back to the IPO, right? Like some of it was thrust upon me, but you could always raise your hand and say, hey, I really wanna do this thing. And people have been supportive. And I think that kind of environment has really allowed me to get a lot of experience and growth that I didn't need to go elsewhere. And so I think for me that's been unique, where a lot of people, you know, they hit their cap and they're like, I'm not growing and I need to go elsewhere, which makes sense. for me, what's next is is definitely I want to take on that head of legal GC role. I'm working through that right now. I was as some people say, very brave. This goes back to being a hum wearing that human hat. We had an offset. Two years ago. We did a leader AMA and somebody asked, What does everyone want to do? You know, something along those lines. And I went first. I said, I want to be a GC. that's the plan. Like that's where I'm heading, that's what I want. that's the next step. And it was really interesting because people were shocked that I was willing to say that in front of all my colleagues, in front of the CLO, in front of the whole team, and that it wasn't this quiet behind-the-scenes thing because more likely than not, that's gonna mean leaving Okta at some point. And they were just shocked. And it's one of those culture things that we've tried to build on a legal team, myself and the and the CLO, where it shouldn't be shameful to talk about what your your next steps are. And that they might not be here. They might be somewhere else. And that's okay. Like we have people who are CFOs now who've left our our finance team and like they get bragged on. It's like, look at how many CFOs we've made. You know, things like that.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)54:43
Yes. Yeah. No, my my and my G Cs that have worked for me, I'm so proud of it. Like that go

Kim Woodward54:48
no.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)54:48
on to be G C's. It's incredible. And it's the mark of a good leader. And sometimes you know the company can't give that. you know, it it was always a and it could just mean other projects, right? So like at Amazon, it was like, okay, the company's growing fast enough that you can they encourage people to move from AWS to Kindle to, you know, retail to whatever for that reason that it was like to be able to to to grow and and and do other things. I love it. Awesome. Well let's let's I dive into Lightning Round. So Lightning Round, what is a book, mentor, or podcast that has shaped how you think?

Kim Woodward55:22
man, that's supposed to be a lightning round question. I would say I had a mentor, I'll tell this story. So I had a mentor early on, and I love this one, who said, don't go and do a ton of research when you can just ask me a question and get the answer in two minutes. And I tell that to people every day because everyone wants to be smart and go do the research. And if it takes you four hours, but I can give you the answer in two minutes, just ask me. Just ask me. I'll tell you.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)55:47
I love it. Yeah, you you're you're not you're you're not shy for sure. I love that. So what is your favorite lawyer skill?

Kim Woodward55:54
I think persuasion for me is because because it doesn't matter what kind of business you're in, what you do, like being able to persuade people is very helpful.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)56:04
you said giving you a mic is a mistake. I hard disagree on that, but what is the topic where that is most true?

Kim Woodward56:11
So it's it's funny because that came up in the prep for this, but it's kind of two reasons. One is I'm pretty loath to give it back. so I tend to hang on to it. So that's one. That's that's the main reason. And the second one is I do have a tendency to swear definitely. I don't think I've done it on this on this call yet. and I do have a tendency to tell some off-color color jokes here and there. and so If there are HR people around me, I'm always like, please cover your ears. And plus, there's always our ethics people and lawyers. And I'm like, shh, I didn't say that. Ignore me. but yeah, it's it's usually a mistake, but it's fun. When offsite, they got me a bullhorn. and my admin told me that that was the happiest she thinks she's ever seen me. Like when I opened it and I looked at it. She said the look on my face was the happiest she'd ever seen anyone in her life. and I loved that bullhorn. It was amazing. It was cheaper than getting

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)56:58
Okay.

Kim Woodward56:58
mics. So we did a bullhorn, it was amazing.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)57:01
Amazing. Well look, I think we'll let's do more events. I'm like I we'll we'll we'll talk after the show and and and do more because I I think like legal ops is like it does feel like it's having a moment to now and like this idea of like the lawyer journey, the IPO journey, there's so much we can talk about. We could talk all day. Like we it's been fifty minutes, but I think we could go all day.

Kim Woodward57:18
I know. I saw this hive and I was like, we could just go on forever. I'm I'm I love this.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)57:22
Amazing. All right. Well, Kimberly, this has been such a lovely conversation. Thank you so much for being here.

Kim Woodward57:28
Thank you and thanks for the time and thanks for having me.

Cecilia Ziniti (GC AI)57:30
That was Kimberly Woodward, the VP of Legal and Chief of Staff at Okta, and one of the most energizing conversations we've had on the show about what a legal career looks like, about legal ops, about AI, about microphones. Whether you're leading a legal team, working inside one, building the tools that power them, head over to gc.ai to see how the most forward-thinking folks in legal are doing their best work. Follow Susie and friends wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at gc.ai. See you next time. Thank you.