Alumni leadership in senior roles

By Suzanne Bowness

Celebrating two alumni who have found success across sectors

While Sonia Keshwar, BCL’96, LLB’96, and Gordon Cruess, BCL/LLB’07, may hold positions in different roles, industries, and even countries, both leaders share a path that led them to success in roles spanning business, finance, operations and law. Another commonality? Both still use daily the tools they began developing during their time at McGill Law. Keshwar is Vice-President of Special Initiatives, Compliance and Ethics for OMERS, the $105 billion pension plan that invests in Canada and globally on behalf of more than half a million municipal employees in Ontario. Cruess is Senior Vice-President and Associate General Counsel for General Atlantic, a global growth equity investor in New York. They spoke to Focus Law/Droit about the challenges and triumphs of their wide-ranging careers.

SONIA KESHWAR

Operating at the intersection of law and business

Keshwar did not know where her career would ultimately lead, but attending law school was always her plan. At Chancellor Day Hall, Keshwar broadened her understanding of what she could do with a legal education through extracurriculars and part-time work. “I liked all my courses, but I particularly enjoyed the opportunities to participate in the Jessup moot, lead the International Law Society, and work part-time in an international trade law boutique,” she recalled. After graduating, Keshwar worked in private practice at McMillan and Torys in Toronto before changing lanes and becoming General Counsel of a publicly traded start-up. “The strong technical, client relationship and deal management skills I learned from the terrific lawyers and clients I worked with in private practice served me well in subsequent roles,” she said. “In my later years at Torys, I was doing a lot of deals for a financial services client working in tandem with the business from the earliest stages of the deals, and became interested in an in-house position with a significant business component.” Joining the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), Keshwar used her legal training in a series of legal and operational roles, which included managing the investment dealer dispute resolution program, overseeing the launch and operation of stock exchanges and marketplaces, assessing dealer business plans and transactions, leading regulatory consultations, and assuming operational leadership of a new regulatory function. “These were roles that I never would have expected or even known were possibilities as a student,” said Keshwar.

Keshwar’s position at OMERS brings together her interest and experience in business, operations, public policy, law, and regulation. “There are endless interesting issues, deals, projects and opportunities to stretch, learn and grow, and to lead and support others,” said Keshwar. “Our work ultimately benefits municipal employees from across the province — fire fighters, paramedics, public health and children’s aid workers and others who spend their careers in public service. The sense of purpose is shared across OMERS.” The legal skills Keshwar started developing at McGill remain useful in her current position. “My legal background helps me address our business and operational challenges and has proved a strong foundation for multi-disciplinary roles. This broad perspective influences my talent management, mentorship and sponsorship activities. I look forward to continued learning and growth, and to supporting the next cohort in achieving their potential.”

GORDON CRUESS

Thinking outside the box

Cruess found his calling in a first-year contracts class taught by Professor Rosalie Jukier, BCL’83, LLB’83. “She made contracts incredibly exciting,” he recalled. “It didn’t take long to figure out that private contracts were the most interesting and challenging area of practice for me. They’re like very complicated puzzles, and it’s fun to put them together.” Cruess also spent a semester at Sciences Po in Paris and credits McGill Law’s international perspective with awakening him to the possibility of launching his legal career in New York. After several years practising in mergers and acquisitions, first at Cravath and then at Paul, Weiss, Cruess made the move to General Atlantic in 2015. The work he does in-house is broader and more strategic, and involves more moving pieces than the discrete elements of transactions that he handled at a firm, noted Cruess.

“At a firm, M&A lawyers focus on transaction diligence and execution. In-house, you are living with your portfolio companies through the investment’s full life cycle. As investors who are generally in a minority position, backing companies that are growing quickly, promoting alignment and addressing key risks is core to what we do. I work with our deal teams to come up with the appropriate diligence plan, and to negotiate structure, rights, governance and exit provisions with the portfolio companies and law firms involved. After we invest, I frequently work with portfolio companies directly on all manner of issues and am typically very involved in exit planning and execution when that time comes,” said Cruess. The work is fast-paced in a corporate environment, he said. “Our business is growing dramatically and the pace of our investment has increased, particularly as COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of our core themes like digitization. We invest in leading growth companies around the world, and have to be very flexible and creative,” he said. A big difference between working at a law firm and working in-house is the time it takes to fully understand the business you work for and the businesses you are investing in, and educating colleagues about their legal options and risks, Cruess added. Working in New York with graduates from top law and business schools, Cruess has reflected on the quality of education and opportunities afforded by McGill Law. “People who excel at McGill can compete with anybody. It’s a rigorous, challenging environment, and the quality of people McGill attracts is world-class. I think we’re taught to think outside of the box and creatively, given the nature of the transsystemic program,” said Cruess.