R. Gregory Roussel

After Roussel headed the $1 billion acquisition of photo sharing app Instagram for social media leader Facebook in 2012, he started 2014 with helping Facebook with six more acquisitions, document sharing site Dropbox with five acquisitions and LinkedIn with one acquisition, making him the go-to M&A lawyer in social media.

This past summer, Roussel advised business marketer Bizo, Inc. in its $175 million acquisition by career networking site LinkedIn and digital advertiser Rocket Fuel's $230 million acquisition of marketing provider and data manager X Plus Two Solutions. At Fenwick & West, Roussel and his team learned they had to tweak the merger and acquisition process for the booming technology industry.

"One of things we recognized a long time ago in the valley is having the top quality and technology is paramount for our successful companies," he said. "There are a lot in the M&A process, but they're traditionally inefficient and not achieving the outcomes the technology companies care about."

Intellectual property is one of the main factors technology companies want to protect when they merge with or acquire other companies. But before companies prepare to get into the capital market game, they consult Roussel.

"We talk to companies a lot of times that want to work with companies, and they need to ramp up," he said. "We explain to them the process, so they understand the potential of the acquisition, so when they find someone they're interested in, they can go in on the right foot."

Most technology companies use mergers and acquisitions when they want to improve on a certain feature like Instagram wanting to improve video with its first acquisition of iOS video sharing app Luma, which Roussel advised last year.

"That's one of the compelling things: technology talent finding a good fit," he said. "Even though it's a large company, they really have the idea to execute and accelerate it. It's one of my favorite things about my job. I bring all those things together and I understand their perspectives on each side of the deal."

Roussel graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School wanting to pursue corporate law, in particular, representing video game companies. Since 2008, the industry climate changed, and he began working more with social media companies. "You hear horror stories about clients, but my clients are cool people to hang out with and do business with," he said.

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