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Evan Johnson’s path was already exceptionally rare. The current senior corporate counsel at HP Inc. began his law career with an in-house position. Upon graduating from law school at Santa Clara University, he was able to land in-house role at Cisco. He was two years in when an opportunity for an expanded role became available, and he expected the job to be his for the taking. However, that’s when his nontraditional path of going directly in-house became even more, well, nontraditional.
“At the last minute, my manager told me that he’d had a discussion with Cisco’s general counsel, and that they thought it would be beneficial for my career to get some law firm experience rather than continuing straight on the in-house path,” Johnson remembers. “They worried my skill set would be too narrow, and that practicing at a corporate law firm would provide me a chance to expand my expertise.”
Some attorneys may have felt disrupted, panicked, or even betrayed. Johnson was excited. Cisco was willing to second him to firm Fenwick & West, Cisco’s primary outside counsel for M&A. The planned one-year secondment experience would provide Johnson with startup counseling, venture capital financing, M&A, and other strategic transaction experiences.
He partnered with networking, software, gaming, internet, social media, and semiconductor industries. If it was a wide variety of experiences that would make him a better in-house practitioner, he’d return with an astonishing breadth of expertise.
The only problem was that Johnson loved what he was doing too much to return to Cisco. He’d end up staying at Fenwick for another seven-and-a-half years.
His tenure included high-stakes deals—like advising on Data Domain’s $1.5 billion acquisition by NetApp and Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram—and client partnerships emblematic of boom-time Silicon Valley. “It’s kind of like I got into a big law firm through the back door,” he jokes, “But all of the things I had worried about when I heard people talk about law firms turned out not to be the case for me. I loved the work.”
Johnson would make his way back in house the same way he exited it in the first place: a secondment to HP. That was ten years ago. The senior corporate counsel is a deeply rooted member of HP’s mergers and acquisitions team, having helped shepherd many transactions.
HP is a long-term veteran of tech, but HP Inc., however, is not. Johnson arrived just in time for a seismic split. In 2015, Hewlett-Packard Company divided into two Fortune 50 companies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. It was one of corporate America’s largest and most complex breakups, and Johnson chose to go with HP Inc.
“I was more excited about their technology, and I really liked my manager,” Johnson remembers. “I’ve always been very happy about that decision. That was also the beginning of forming the HP Tech Ventures investment arm of the company.”
HP Tech Ventures invests in companies shaping generative AI, edge computing, sustainability, and the future of work. Johnson’s deep experience with startups and venture capital was a natural fit for the fledgling Tech Ventures initiative, supporting the investment team on strategic minority investments and counseling on all matters related to HP’s investment portfolio.
“I’ve been the legal lead on every minority investment HP Inc. has made,” Johnson says. “I loved doing that work at Fenwick, and now I’m on the investor side of those deals.”
The attorney has also helped his company navigate deals with fellow titans of the tech space. HP’s acquisition of Samsung’s printer business in 2016 was the largest print acquisition in HP’s history at $1.05 billion. HP gained access to over 6,500 printing patents as well as a workforce of around 1,300 researchers and engineers specializing in laser technology, imaging electronics, and supplies.
“It was as difficult a process as it was long,” Johnson says, laughing. “I think it ran across 70 or 80 countries, and as it was an asset acquisition, that meant there were parts of the business scattered all over the world.”
The complexity was furthered upped by political considerations in Samsung’s native South Korea and the more intertwined nature of business and government there. Johnson made the trip overseas twice during the deal negotiations.
The attorney’s evolution has continued, and in addition to M&A and investments, Johnson is the primary legal support for HP’s global real estate organization, a position he volunteered to take on. Although he would not call himself a real estate attorney, the role has required Johnson to build a new skill set in property sales, leases, and land-use litigation.
If it’s not evident, Johnson works hard to avoid being in a silo. He tries to see himself as a “silo buster” of sorts, one who can streamline processes, enhance communication through departments that may not inherently seek out interaction with each other, and help cultivate a legal culture that embraces change.
When he’s not driving that change himself, you can find him on hikes with his daughter and golden retriever, playing disc golf, or, most recently, helping his son prepare to start at the West Point Military Academy.
Johnson hopes that his son’s career will take as many interesting twists and turns as his own.
“Evan is an accomplished corporate attorney and trusted legal advisor who plays a key role in successfully executing M&A transactions. He is a strong leader and guides his team with innovative approaches.”
–Sarah Young, M&A Partner
