Edward Klaris: “Here Are 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO of KlarisIP”
By: Carly Martinetti
Tags: Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership

Thank you for joining us! Can you tell us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Unlike many, I fell into an area of law that I have loved since I started practicing in 1992. I scored a plum job as a litigation associate at a boutique media law firm in New York City. What I enjoyed was not just the First Amendment, privacy, and copyright work I was doing for many of the world’s largest media companies — it was working with associates and partners everyday who were passionate about protecting free speech, supporting media and entertainment companies, and doing all that with superlative work product. That combination — great clients, important work, and wonderful colleagues — launched my career and sparked my desire one day to have a firm of my own that would replicate what I had my first six years.

I was 26 when I started practicing law. When I was 48, I started Klaris Law and KlarisIP. That gap included years of litigation and then counseling at ABC/Disney, The New Yorker, and Condé Nast. My experiences prepared me to start my businesses. But what made me do it was the technological and economic developments in media and entertainment between 1991 and 2015.

I started my law and consulting firm to service companies that needed to understand a much more complicated legal and business environment than existed in my early days. By 2015, I had led and advised on major digital transformations; had played a big role as the Internet had swallowed traditional businesses; had sat in the conference rooms of companies that needed to take into account streaming content, native content, massive copyright piracy, increased distribution windows, a global economy hungry for U.S. content, and much more.

My firms now help small, medium and large companies better manage these issues. We do so by employing unparalleled, thoughtful advice and support, with professionals who are qualified to deliver the work. My firms are unique because we are not just lawyers. We have professional management consultants, library scientists, engineers, and subject matter experts. On top of it all, I have managed to put together a group of professionals who are passionate about what they do and the media and entertainment sectors that they serve.

Can you share one of the major challenges you encountered when first leading the company? What lesson did you learn from that?

A major challenge I faced when I started the company was new client development and cash flow. I was intensely focused on bringing in clients and growing my business. We are paid on services that have been rendered. If, hypothetically, it takes thirty days to bring in a new client, including negotiation of the engagement contract, it will take at least thirty more days to be able to invoice the client. That sixty days with no cash flow becomes 120 days when you count how long it takes for large companies to pay invoices. From day one, I had clients and was doing lots of wonderful work. The challenge came when I began hiring people and needed to pay every two weeks. My goal was to operate without lines of credit so I had to time my hires to my accounts receivable so that I could be assured that growth did not cripple us.

Thankfully, we are now 34 people and we never missed payroll or had to take out a line of credit. We are a company with no debt but that did not come easily. I had many restless nights.

What are some of the factors that you believe led to your eventual success?

I have been passionate, curious, wide-eyed and committed to excellence since day one and, I think, that has drawn people to me, given me opportunities, and entrusted me with some of their toughest issues. Having started my business in mid-career, I had already developed a base of knowledge, judgment, insights, and know-how that comforted my clients. They wanted to work with me because they knew I would understand their situations. Nonetheless, it is not just what initially brings the business in. Success has come from clients that are made happy day in and day out. The most important thing that I have done to be successful in my own business is to be highly responsive to my clients, to reach for excellence, and to gauge what levels of risk they are comfortable with before advising on complicated matters.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO”?

You will never be on vacation, will never be able to leave your phone, will never feel like you have arrived. You will have clients who leave you no matter what you do or how well you perform your job. You will fret about cash flow, taxes, and benefits every year. You will always have employees who are needy, unhappy, or who move on to other jobs no matter how good a boss you are. You must always be introspective, look at your own shortcomings, and try to get guidance from your colleagues. Being CEO does not mean being alone. It means you must get candid advice from those around you, defer to them and trust them.

What advice would you give to your colleagues to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

The most important thing is to love your job. Enjoy what you are learning, seek out new challenges, help others succeed, and be generous to yourself and others. My colleagues and I are in the professional services business. We are lawyers and consultants and we must be after excellence in work product and service. Burn out happens when you are not enjoying your work, do not feel autonomous or motivated.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Before starting my business, I had three excellent bosses. They each taught me a great deal. I am most grateful to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker and my boss for 6 years. David brought me in as his General Counsel when I was 34. I was chosen from a pool of hundreds of qualified candidates, many of whom had more experience than me. David did not pretend to know what I did from a legal point of view. He is a writer and editor. He deferred to me where appropriate and sought my guidance. But I watched how David maintained an office atmosphere of excellence, hard work, and yet gratitude and appreciation for his colleagues. I learned by witnessing how he handled himself on the morning of September 11, 2001, gathering his reporters, sending them down to ground zero, being sensitive to colleagues who were upset. I grew as a professional working with David on important stories like Seymore Hersh’s Abu Ghraib reports of abuse and torture in Afghanistan. And, I transformed as a professional when David asked that I add to my remit the digital transformation of The New Yorker. It was then when I became a lawyer and a business person and it was then when I got the entreprenurial bug, which would ultimately help me launch my business.

What are some of the goals you still have and are working to accomplish, both personally and professionally?

I have lived in Manhattan, New York all my life. I raised my children (23 and 21) in Manhattan and married a woman from Manhattan. While I am proud to be a New Yorker, I hope to spend much more time in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is not just a great city, with amazing weather and natural beauty, but it is also at the epicenter of media and entertainment. Los Angeles is pulsating with ideas, creative people, and serious business minds, and I want to be part of that.

While I already spend between 1 and 2 weeks per month in Los Angeles (my largest clients are there), I plan to spend more time. I want to grow my business in Los Angeles and work with the many studios, production companies, and agencies that make up the heartbeat of the city.

What do you hope to leave as your lasting legacy?

I would like to be remembered by colleagues, family and friends as a person with integrity, joyfulness, and judgment; one who was a positive, inspiring influence on others.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would enhance people’s lives in some way, what would it be? You never know what your idea can trigger!

I would love to be a catalyst in “pay it forward”, a movement where people do things for others as much as for themselves. Generosity of spirit can lead to tolerance of the “other”, doing your share in the fight against global warming, parting with some of your wealth to give money to others in need. Too many people think they have no impact on the world around them, which I believe is selfish. Movements start with people doing something, one thing at a time.

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