SoftBank Vision Fund Names New Top Lawyer Amid Layoffs, Losses

SoftBank Group Corp. has appointed Amanda Sanchez-Barry to be general counsel for its Vision Fund, which is facing mass layoffs and record-setting losses.

Sanchez-Barry succeeds Spencer Collins, who had taken over the general counsel role at SoftBank Investment Advisers a year ago this month.

Sanchez-Barry joined SoftBank as a partner in 2018, having previously been a managing associate at Linklaters in London. She was part of a team of lawyers from the global legal giant to advise Tokyo-based SoftBank in 2017 on the launch of its $100 billion Vision Fund for technology investments.

The Vision Fund is expected to slash at least 30% of its roughly 500 employees after SoftBank announced in August a record $23.4 billion quarterly loss, with about $17.3 billion of that sum coming from the fund. The disclosure called into question the business model of the company’s founder, Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son.

A SoftBank spokeswoman confirmed Sanchez-Barry’s role as the fund’s top lawyer.

Sanchez-Barry now serves as general counsel for SoftBank Investment Advisers, the managing entity for the technology conglomerate’s London-based Vision Fund.

In a 2015 interview with the UK’s Law Society, Sanchez-Barry spoke about her journey to Big Law, one that began as a child of first generation Filipino immigrants. She was the first person in her immediate family to attend a university.

Sanchez-Barry had a son at 19 and as a single mother worked two jobs and put herself through law school.

“Don’t give up and don’t make excuses,” she said when asked about what career advice she would impart to those like herself.

Previous GC

Before Sanchez-Barry, Collins, a former managing partner at SoftBank, spent almost a year as the fund’s general counsel.

He had succeeded Brian Wheeler, a former partner at DLA Piper, in the role. Wheeler left SoftBank in October 2021 to become general counsel and head of corporate development for the Heni Group, a San Francisco-based marketplace for non-fungible tokens. He remained a senior adviser to SoftBank until May.

Collins, a former White & Case lawyer who has worked for SoftBank since 2017, was announed in late July as the new chief legal officer for Arm Ltd., a Cambridge, England-based superchip company of strategic importance to SoftBank.

Arm had already named Collins to be its interim legal chief following the February departure of its former general counsel Carolyn Herzog, who recently became the top lawyer at software company Elastic NV.

Arm hired Herzog in 2017, a year after SoftBank paid $32 billion to buy the company.

Her exit from Arm came the same month that Nvidia Corp. abandoned its $40 billion plan to acquire the company from SoftBank. The deal would have been the largest-ever in the semiconductor industry but collapsed amid criticism and regulatory opposition to Nvidia gaining market dominance in the space.

SoftBank subsequently said it was considering a plan to take Arm public at a roughly $60 billion valuation but would retain a controlling stake in the company.

Arm has attracted other suitors like Qualcomm Inc., a rival chipmaker that objected to the Nvidia deal and has also been sued by Arm. SoftBank’s Vision Fund owns about 25% of Arm, which has also shed staffers this year.

Personnel Changes

SoftBank and its Vision Fund have also dealt with turnover in personnel, including changes on the legal side of the business.

Last year Holland & Knight hired former SoftBank deputy general Enrique Conde as a partner in Miami. Conde spent nearly two years at SoftBank, having previously been a partner at Morrison & Foerster and Greenberg Traurig.

Patricia Menéndez-Cambó, a former Miami-based vice chair at Greenberg Traurig hired by SoftBank in 2019 as a deputy general counsel and legal chief for a Latin America-focused fund, left earlier this year but remains a consultant to SoftBank Investment Advisers.

Neither lawyer responded to requests for comment. Nor did a half-dozen other former in-house attorneys at SoftBank that have left in recent months.

Among them are Denise Ho, a former deputy general counsel for SoftBank Investment Advisers who last year was hired as general counsel and head of corporate development for virtual learning startup Brainly Inc., and Aaron Katzel, an attorney and legal operations specialist recruited by SoftBank in 2020.

That same year, Katzel sued his former employer American International Group Inc., accusing the insurance giant of firing him in retaliation for him whistleblowing.

AIG, represented by Davis Polk & Wardwell, defeated that lawsuit last month.

Despite the departures, SoftBank has also added legal talent. In February, the company brought on former Covington & Burling associate Peter Komorowski III in Washington as a senior counsel focused on litigation and CFIUS work.

Clutter Inc., a personal moving and storage startup that raised $200 million in a Vision Fund-led fundraising round in 2019, recently added a new top lawyer in breast cancer survivor Renee Jackson. She replaced Brooke Rotstein, who joined Clutter upon its acquisition this year of her former employer, MakeSpace Labs Inc.

SoftBank confirmed that Timothy Mackey, a former Milbank and Paul Hastings lawyer whom it elevated in 2020 to its top legal role, remains in that post.

Mackey succeeded Robert Townsend, a former head dealmaker at Morrison & Foerster who SoftBank tapped for its newly created legal chief job in 2018.

Morrison & Foerster has been a longtime legal adviser to SoftBank and handled numerous deals and transactions for the company in recent years.

Kenneth Siegel, managing partner of the law firm’s Tokyo office, joined SoftBank’s board last year.