February 03, 2023
Michele Lau, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, GoDaddy
Rebooting GoDaddy Into Web3 – Michele Lau, GoDaddy
Listen on:
When you mention GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE:GDDY), most people instinctually say, ‘that’s where I got my website URL’. As a pioneer during the early stages of the Internet, GoDaddy quickly became the go-to domain provider as the world rushed to name and claim their stake on the web.
Today—with over 9000 people who deliver $4 billion in annual revenue—this broad-based web enablement company provides the world’s entrepreneurs and SMB’s a portfolio of products and services that have everything to do their growing their businesses. GoDaddy empowers people and organizations, providing practical guidance and tools to manage their work and succeed online—from offering services to build professional websites, to attracting viewers and selling products and services to their customers.
A key new leader on senior team is CLO (Chief Legal Officer) and Corporate Secretary Michele Lau, who is rebooting the company’s approach to legal, compliance, audit, sustainability, ESG, governance, and government and industry affairs. Michele brings a refreshing take on strategy, culture and growth that is engaging stakeholder groups across the company and industry. We had an insightful discussion on this episode of The Reboot Chronicles and unpacked how she is helping to take the iconic brand to next-level of growth and innovation.
Legal as a Service and Strategic Weapon
Not many strategy meetings feature a lawyer early on. Contrary to the belief that legal teams are a necessity for issues and deal closures, Michele has managed to find her seat at the table early on. She has been rebooting that notion for decades and “demonstrating how we can be creative problem solvers while also protecting the company”.
“We have the proof points over time, when we can show that we can add value earlier on and of course, it is incumbent on us to make sure that we do understand the priorities of the business, the focus areas, and the goals.”
Understanding Internal and External Dynamics
Getting grips on the business, the model and through that process, help craft better lucrative deals for the company is how the role of CLO’s is gradually evolving over time. It helps change the complexion of ‘hey you guys were thinking about this’ to a ‘here’s an alternative’ – an approach that blends strategy, thinking across multiple groups and factoring in legal parameters.
“In roles like mine we really have the privilege of having an enterprise wide view and with that comes the responsibility; part of what we do is being strategic connectors to help make sure the right people are involved and to help drive outcomes for the company.”
Getting every single employee’s perspective in all areas under her stewardship made her see the priorities, the emerging risks, also the potential. “One of the things that came out of that very much was that we had an opportunity to drive more value for the company, our customers, and our shareholders, by being more deeply integrated. For the law group that meant putting a lawyer in the room working shoulder to shoulder with each business unit and functional leadership team.”
Environmental, Social and Governance
Environmental and Social synergies have been something that GoDaddy has shown commitment to. Empowering entrepreneurs and making opportunities more inclusive have been in the DNA of the company, with programs like:
“Empower by GoDaddy” gives customers’ tools, training and peer networks to accelerate and succeed in their entrepreneurial journey. Creating impact by partnering with local non profits and imparting digital knowledge – as coaches, mentors and advocates, has been a huge boost for underserved communities.
“One of the things I really love about ‘Empower by GoDaddy’ is, it’s tied to our mission and our business strategy and something that feels like a true whole company effort – employees are so passionate about the mission, that they are spending their time helping in that program in addition to their day jobs, and we also have a rotational program where an employee can take twelve weeks out of their day-to-day job and go work directly with an empower partner, with one of those local non profits.”
Go Daddy’s product road map, building vs partnering, all seem to point to “how we need to experiment and do it quickly in order to test things out, make our products and services better and to better serve our customers. Another thing that we talk a lot about is the spirit of continual learning and continual improvement, so innovation very much is at the core of who we are, and we have teams across the company who are actively working on it.”
Managed commerce stores is another new solution helping entrepreneurs easily sell in-person, and across marketplaces and multiple channels, through one unified dashboard and without downloading additional plugins. Likewise Venture Forward, a data-driven initiative of GoDaddy, that offers policy makers visibility to data from micro businesses making an impact in communities, making them more prosperous.
“Customers, employees, shareholders, regulators, communities: we think about stake holders very broadly; so really listening to what they need, determining what’s important for your business – -I think there was a time many years ago where people talked about corporate social responsibility, and it was a kind of collection of good things that people were doing without a clear strategy and i think if you first listen to your stake holders about what they needed and think about what your unique strengths are as a company and marry those two with your strategy, that’s where you can really have the greatest impact, and that’s something that we are so proud of here at GoDaddy.”
For someone viewing “change as an opportunity”, it has definitely been rewarding making legal something more than “just deal makers”.
