Stephanie Warner – Go1

The tech industry’s growing in Utah, what with Salt Lake City and its neighboring communities boasting 22 percent annual growth in such jobs since 2020. That upbeat statistic notwithstanding, companies here may still have to economize and, especially for the younger ones, that can mean outsourcing their legal needs.

But how much more efficient would it be in the long run if such companies retained a well-rounded de facto general counsel rather than dialing up their preferred law firm for whatever the issue du jour? So explains Stephanie Warner, who’s soon to leave her latest in-house role to hang her own shingle as a solo practitioner, willing to serve a company at a flat rate or subscription.

Stephanie Warner | Go1 | General Counsel

“Now’s the time for me to act on this,” the personable Warner tells Vanguard in July, just weeks before concluding her duties with Go1, a Brisbane, Australia, online learning startup that’s benefitted from her legal leadership since May 2023. “Because I’ve experienced different in-house roles, I have a good perspective of a corporate client’s needs, whether in Utah or elsewhere.”

The corporate needs in the so-called Beehive State could be many. Young or middle-aged types often lead tech companies with a progressive workplace outlook for recruiting and retaining talent. Extended paid leave for child rearing and caring for aged or ailing loved ones is considered a sound business, as is generous time off for vacations, personal development, community volunteering and other such activities.

Been there, done that

Warner has acquitted herself in those roles in the past year as Go1’s general counsel as well as her preceding 2010-to-2023 stretch as director and associate general counsel with another tech innovator, Adobe. The transition has been a wild ride, she says, one calling for her to redefine the role of legal as a business driver for a company that hadn’t had a general counsel for the preceding six months.

The first step was establishing a foundation for implementing processes, applications and breaking down silos, with Warner introducing legal metrics to demonstrate the team’s value and also adding some simple common sense for whatever had been consuming undue personnel hours for the small but mighty team.

Go1’s six-member all female legal team dispersed in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, Warner gauged it wouldn’t function efficiently if bogged down with tasks that could be handled by other departments. For example, non-negotiated nondisclosure agreements are now automated; they don’t need to pass through legal hands because she says the sales staff is just as qualified to execute those on pre-vetted paper.

“The legal team has got to focus on work that’s most impactful,” she told those under her wing as well as colleagues in other departments. “Governance, entity management, privacy, revenue deals, compliance—let us handle the big strategic stuff, not what’s low risk.”

And big strategic stuff has been on the legal agenda. Just before Warner’s arrival, Go1 had closed its fourth acquisition in recent years, absorbing German-based Blinkist. This mobile-first microlearning app supports a new wave of self-directed learning. This acquisition expands Go1’s content offering into 27 learning categories and 7,000 titles.

Blinkist provides learners with bite-sized edutainment and is now offered within Go1’s content offering of over 80,000 courses. Folding Blinkist into Go1 supports their singular mission: to empower 1 billion learners with access to expertly-curated learning content from industry-leading providers.

But integrating Blinkist into Go1 has taken some doing, says Warner, who quickly familiarized herself with the overseas team. It’s still a work in progress, one that has the legal team arranging entity management and insurance, drafting customer terms, and ascertaining worldwide intellectual property laws to ensure that everything’s functioning as one company. As she says, it’s all part of in-house legal leadership, a role she came to Go1 with much preparation.

She means business

At Adobe, Warner comfortably moved among various roles over the course of almost 13 years, starting as a transactional deal attorney and then moving into product roles in the Adobe Experience Cloud business unit.

“My VP (Wade Sherman) at Adobe allowed me a lot of creativity in completing projects,” she says. “And that’s what I’m good at. My personality is more business-minded, and being in-house suits me. Once I open my own firm to support in-house legal teams, I feel ready to make an immediate impact.”

After graduating from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law in 2009, Warner began her legal career at a boutique law firm in Salt Lake City. Today, she proudly serves as the President of the Board of Trustees of her alma mater’s law school. Now in the second year of her term, Warner is dedicated to nurturing a lasting bond between the college and its alumni, fostering impactful contributions to the institution while enriching the professional journeys of its graduates. Her vision includes bolstering fundraising initiatives to attract top-tier talent to Utah and enhancing the state’s vibrant legal community.

How much more effective she reckoned she could be, and after just one year of leading the Go1 legal department, there’s the tagline, “We empower business growth through strategic partnership and risk management.” Now, Warner says she can do that as an outside lawyer working within a company. Sure, she’ll be walking away from a desirable position at a thriving company, but after 14 years in-house, it’s a very calculated leap of faith.

It’ll also afford her more time with her husband, Adam Warner, and their 11-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son. When Stephanie FaceTimed with Vanguard, it was from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one of three locales where Adam runs a Mountain Trails Gallery. The galleries are also in Park City, Utah, and Bozeman, Montana. They feature high-end traditional oil paintings and bronze sculptures by world-class artists, and each summer, the family is likely at one of these locales.

Warner will surely have corporate clients to satisfy as she begins a new chapter of her professional life. She says it’s satisfying to get everyone on the same page, whether in the office or remotely, and to be transparent in the process.

“It’s what we’ve done at Go1,” she says. “My strengths are influencing executives and getting people on board with changes in the company’s best interests. I’ll be doing so in a new role.”