Features

Robert Lavet – SoFi Technologies Inc.

SoFi legal leader enjoys fast-paced challenges

Getting your name in lights means a lot—just ask Robert Lavet.

As general counsel for SoFi Technologies Inc., he helped negotiate the company’s 20-year naming rights agreement for the new football stadium in Inglewood, California.

While SoFi CEO and former NFL Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto came up with the idea, Lavet and outside counsel worked on the $625 million deal to name SoFi Stadium, including negotiating signage and exclusivity agreements for advertising banking services.

Robert Lavet | General Counsel | SoFi Technologies Inc.

Robert Lavet | General Counsel | SoFi Technologies Inc.

SoFi Stadium is home to two NFL teams and hosted the NFC Championship and Super Bowl in early 2022. SoFi didn’t advertise during the Super Bowl, but after repeated mentions and visuals of the stadium, the company was the query of more online searches than any advertisers after the game, Lavet says.

The naming rights deal was a first for Lavet. But it’s far from the only challenge he’s faced at SoFi since joining the company in September 2012.

“This has been the most complex and challenging role of my career,” Lavet says. “We iterate quickly and we’ve launched a mortgage business, credit card, in-school financing, automated and self-directed stock investing with margin trading and we have options trading and other product launches coming.”

SoFi so far

SoFi, which is short for Social Finance Inc., was founded by Stanford University business school students in August 2011. In May 2012, it became the first company to offer refinancing for federal and private student loans.

In October 2014, SoFi began offering mortgages and then personal loans a year later. In 2015, SoFi also received $1 billion in new investment in a funding round. In January 2019, SoFi Invest was launched.

Robert Lavet | General Counsel | SoFi Technologies Inc.

SoFi currently has more than 4.5 million members and has made more than $73 billion in loans. Its refinancing has enabled borrowers to pay off more than $34 billion in student loan debt.

While Lavet has long provided support for almost all SoFi’s services, he says the last two years have been especially busy as the company has gone from private to public by merging with an existing special-purpose acquisition company in a “de-SPAC” process.

IPO and more

To prepare for the de-SPAC and initial public offering, Lavet worked with outside counsel from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Goodwin and Proctor. They gathered and provided financial information and details about SoFi needed for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. They also created the corporate governance structure the new public company would need, as well as the prospectus for investors. SoFi went public on June 1, 2021.

The de-SPAC process was complicated, but Lavet says helping SoFi become a national bank was an even greater challenge. It required applying to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter and approval from the Federal Reserve and the OCC for the acquisition of Golden Pacific Bancorp Inc.

Lavet says he, Noto and the other management team members needed to show federal regulators what would become SoFi Bank had strong enterprise risk management and compliance policies (including anti-money laundering) and procedures in place, as well as the capital needed to operate a bank.

Robert Lavet | General Counsel | SoFi Technologies Inc.

SoFi’s applications for a charter to become a bank holding company were approved by the Fed and OCC in January 2022 and SoFi Bank opened on Feb. 1. About three weeks later, SoFi completed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Technisys, an Argentina-based cloud banking platform.

When combined with SoFi’s 2020 acquisition of payment processing platform Galileo for $1.2 billion, Lavet says SoFi can build the technology so its customers can access the fintech industry’s full suite of offerings.  SoFi can also innovate its own products, including checking, savings, deposits, lending and credit cards.

What’s next?

With SoFi being traded publicly, its digital banking operations in place and the company name in lights, Lavet still has to look out for what comes next.

“In-house work has the benefit of being much closer to the business. You’re a problem solver,” he says. “As an outside lawyer, you come in for a specific matter and the company may not need to see you again.”

Lavet speaks from experience in both areas. The Philadelphia native began his career in private practice with the Washington D.C. law firm of Howrey & Simon in 1979 after earning his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. In 1982, Lavet joined the Department of Justice as a trial attorney in its Civil Division.

Robert Lavet | General Counsel | SoFi Technologies Inc.

“That was phenomenal. You got handed a pile of cases and you just go to it,” he recalls.

He returned to private practice in 1985, then joined Sallie Mae in 1992. He helped Sallie Mae provide a secondary market for federal student loans and become a fully private state-chartered company. He had risen to senior vice president and general counsel before returning to private practice in 2008.

Lavet says joining SoFi in 2012 as its 33rd employee was something he couldn’t pass up.

“It was very compelling,” he says. “I was given a chance to work for a venture-backed company for the first time and play a part in building the business from the ground up. We like to get our hands dirty—to dive right in. That’s led to tremendous growth and success for us.”

View this feature in the Vanguard Winter II 2023 Edition here.

Published on: December 27, 2022

regions:

categories:

Showcase your feature on your website with a custom “As Featured in Vanguard” badge that links directly to your article!

Copy and paste this script into your page coding (ideally right before the closing tag) where you want to display our review banner.

Testimonials

I was honored to be the subject of an article. I enjoy reading Vanguard articles and seeing how other attorneys got to their positions and see their jobs. It's also interesting to see how different law firms partner with the subjects of the articles.
– Henry Marquard, in-house counsel, Stanley Consultants Inc.
As promised in advance, my feature in Vanguard has increased my visibility within the profession and prompted more than a few people I have not communicated with recently to reconnect. One of the Italian law firms I have used in the past is now in the process of interviewing me for an article on their website and tweeting out the feature story. Activity and the number of people connecting with me on LinkedIn has soared, which is great. The Vanguard writers and editorial staff were great to work with—highly professional and made the effort to make the experience both fun and rewarding (they were also respectful of the time pressures and demands all lawyers face). I was very pleased with the experience and the final outcome. Needless to say, I have been very pleased. All in all working with Vanguard has been a very positive experience which generated good publicity for both Shawcor and myself. My sincere thanks.
– Tim Hutzul, General Counsel, ShawCor Ltd.
It was a great honor to be featured in Vanguard Law. Working with every member of the team, from the initial interview with Erin Clark, through production with Victor Martins, writing the article with Taryn Plumb and creating the final content with Dave Gushee, was a true pleasure. Everyone was very professional, enthusiastic and supportive, and their creative approach and positive attitude clearly came through in the final product.
– Kevin C. Rakowski, Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Compliance with Radian Group Inc.
The piece highlighting my company, Bob Baker Enterprises, Inc., came out fabulous. Our company is in the new and used car sales and service industry. Everyone was great to work with and extremely professional. They produced a high-quality product and have provided expert assistance and guidance post-production of the article.
– Wade Poulson, General Counsel, Bob Baker Enterprises Inc.

LATEST EDITION

Fall II 2023

READ NOW

GET VANGUARD IN YOUR INBOX.

  • * We’ll never share your email or info with anyone.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.