"We got this," "We'll take care of it," "Leave that with us" -- statements like these are outside counsel music to in-house counsel ears.
I want to thank the incredible team at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates for helping Splunk through our transformative acquisition by Cisco.
One thing I learned from the Skadden teams I worked closely with (led by Peter Jones & Page Griffin) was the importance of just being resolute, simple, and comforting, in times of high stress.
Rather than "I'm not sure about the law, we will have to look into that," Peter would say, "We got it -- we will look into it and take care of it."
It's a subtle change, but those subtle changes made all the difference during the day-long calls and sprints leading up to the closing.
Thank you to Peter, Page, tennis champion Raphael Davidian (esp. for laughing at my tennis-related dad jokes), Alex Bourdeau, Andrew Hedman, Jason Hewitt, Xu Wang and everyone else on the Skadden team who worked on this project.
Thank you to my amazing team and colleagues Geoffrey Wright, Rachel Evenson, Mikhael Dizon Bunda, Iyadeh Davies, Diane Cree, Derron Sims Jr., Charlotte Chang, Kate Bobovski, and my manager Connie Wu for all your help and support through this incredible experience.
One of the best parts of practicing M&A is that you work SO CLOSELY with a small group of people during key periods of a deal (signing, or closing) that you become friends; confidants; constants in each others' lives, even if for a short period of time.
That's something you'll miss once the deal has closed 💓
Onwards & upwards!
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