TCV Taps Carlson Capital Legal Chief for New Top Compliance Role

Technology Crossover Ventures has hired two lawyers to supplement its small in-house team after the venture capital firm’s record fundraising round earlier this year.

Joseph Brucchieri, chief legal and operating officer at Dallas-based hedge fund Carlson Capital LP, joined TCV within the past month as chief compliance officer and general counsel for corporate operations.

He’s been joined in TCV’s New York office by associate general counsel Anthony Cahill, who in April left his counsel role at Weil, Gotshal & Manges after almost three years. Cahill also once worked at Choate, Hall & Stewart.

TCV, founded in 1995, is has made the hires following investments in companies like Netflix Inc. and Peloton Interactive Inc., both of which saw their bottom lines expand over the last year with customers homebound due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jay Hoag, a founding general partner of TCV, is a member of the boards at both Netflix and Peloton. Zillow Group Inc., Groupon Inc., Facebook Inc., and Expedia Group Inc. have also received venture investments from TCV.

TCV’s chief legal officer, Frederic “Ric” Fenton, who also serves as chief of investment operations for the Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital firm, confirmed both new legal hires to Bloomberg Law.

“There is a lot of extra work to go around these days,” said Fenton, a general partner at TCV and former attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Fenton said that Simpson Thacher advised TCV in January on its close of a $4 billion investment fund, the largest in its 25-year history, and one that will continue the firm’s tradition of investing in technology. TCV led an investment round last year in Wealthsimple Inc. that helped the investment startup hit unicorn status.

In April, TCV touted its pricing of a $350 million initial public offering for a special purpose acquisition company vehicle seeking to combine with an operator in the financial technology, internet, or software sector.

Securities filings related to that listing show that it generated $400,000 in legal fees and expenses for TCV’s lawyers at Ropes & Gray and Maples and Calder, a Cayman Islands-based law firm. Kirkland & Ellis advised underwriters led by Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, and The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Fenton, citing Brucchieri’s “wealth of legal and compliance experience” with global and regulated businesses, said he will be TCV’s first dedicated compliance chief.

Brucchieri, a former associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, didn’t respond to a request for comment about his new role. He spent the past four years at Carlson, having previously been a managing director and general counsel at Och-Ziff Capital Management Inc., an alternative asset manager now known as Sculptor Capital Management Inc.

Fenton said that in his role as compliance chief and head of TCV’s corporate legal operations, Brucchieri will supplement an existing in-house legal team that already includes principal and general counsel John Delfino and deputy chief compliance officer and counsel Paisley Kadison.

At TCV, Fenton oversees all investment operations, as well as legal and non-legal functions like capital markets, data intelligence, and portfolio operations. He joined the firm in 2008 after working at Simpson Thacher in New York and Palo Alto, Calif.

Other New Additions

Brucchieri isn’t the only former lawyer at Carlson—founded in 1993 by activist investor Clint Carlson—to recently find a new in-house home.

New York-based investment firm Tiedemann Advisors LLC announced this week its hire of former Carlson deputy legal chief Whitney Fogle Lewis as chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel.

Lewis, who like Brucchieri left Carlson in April, joined the hedge fund in 2014 after working as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Vinson & Elkins. Carlson has promoted its compliance chief, Michael Umayam, to succeed Brucchieri as its top in-house lawyer.

More new legal recruits of note include:

• Palladium Equity Partners LLC, a middle-market private equity firm, announced April 1 its hire of O’Melveny & Myers bankruptcy and restructuring partner Nancy Mitchell to fill a newly created chief administrative officer and managing director position in New York. Mitchell spent nearly three years at O’Melveny, which she joined in 2018 from Greenberg Traurig. She will work alongside Eugenie “Genie” Cesar-Fabian, Palladium’s longtime general counsel and compliance chief.
• Islet Management LP, a New York-based hedge fund started by former Och-Ziff head equities trader Joseph Samuels, brought on Dechert white-collar and securities litigation partner Rebecca Kahan Waldman in March as its general counsel. Waldman spent the past decade at Dechert, having previously been an associate at Mayer Brown in New York.
• Prime Movers Lab LLC, a Jackson, Wyo.-based venture capital firm founded by entrepreneur Dakin Sloss, hired Hogan Lovells corporate and emerging companies partner Jon Layman as a partner and general counsel in February. Layman joins Prime Movers after it raised $245 million earlier this year for investments in clean energy, health innovation, new space technologies, and sustainable food. Prime Movers is also backing Tarana Wireless Inc., a startup working on an alternative to fiber-optic cable.
• ABR Dynamic Funds LLC, a New York-based investment manager, announced March 17 its hire of former DLA Piper partner John Grady Jr. as its chief operating officer and general counsel. O’Grady spent the past two years as an alternative investments partner at virtual law firm Practus LLP in suburban Philadelphia.