About

Karen King is at the vanguard of developing a more comprehensive in-house legal function at private equity firms. During her 13 years at Silver Lake, she has built a 16 member legal team with personnel in Menlo Park, New York and London. During her tenure, King has on-boarded sophisticated deal and regulatory counsel who provide advice across the broad spectrum of matters that touch Silver Lake and its portfolio companies. As chief legal officer, King is engrained in each of the firm’s multiple business lines, sitting on each of the funds’ valuation committees and attending all investment committee meetings. She is integrally involved in all aspects of Silver Lake’s business, including fundraising, portfolio monitoring and liquidity, as well risk management and regulatory matters. King has been directly involved in every major Silver Lake transaction and has advised portfolio companies on multiple acquisitions, divestitures, financings, senior management transitions, IPO processes, intellectual property protection, cybersecurity, investigations and various other major and complex matters. Her involvement in firm management and strategy includes having played an instrumental role in the firm’s transition from its founders to the next generation of leadership. King shows a nuanced understanding of the legal and business issues of a transaction. She has a unique ability to put this all together to drive positive results for Silver Lake. When Silver Lake acquired Skype, King oversaw a settlement of major IP litigation secured the rights to Skype’s core technology made the company significantly more valuable. Similarly, King had a leading role in the complex business and legal issues arising in the take-private of Dell, including addressing Carl Icahn’s campaign against the transaction, dealing with a competitive bidder who emerged after the deal was signed, managing the PR and communications aspects of the acquisition, and defending class action and appraisal rights litigation. She also served on the board of Serena Software and co-led the sale of that portfolio company. Outside of Silver Lake, King is generous with her time in both the industry and her community. She took a leadership role in forming a network of general counsels of leading private equity firms who periodically meet and exchange perspectives on best practices regarding complex – and often novel – legal matters facing the industry. She is also active in a network of female general counsels of some of the highest profile companies in the Bay Area and is the chairperson and a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum – Silicon Valley (ALF). ALF is a network of over 600 professional leaders, including multiple current or past CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. King is a trustee on the Board of Menlo School and is on the Investment Committee for Sacred Heart Schools – Atherton. She is also a member of the board of advisors for Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. She has been named a Legal Momentum Woman of Achievement, one of the Recorder’s Women Leaders in Tech Law and by PE HUB as one of ten women “smashing PE’s glass ceiling”’.