• Our Purpose
  • Overview
  • Our Approach
  • Core Values
• Our People

  Daniel Appelman Cristina Chirica Jennie Dal Busco Bill Graves Daniel Hansen Joseph Helmers Jan Lewis Sheila Maguire Gale McAllister John Montgomery Jonathan Noble Brianna Richardson Kerry Smith

• Our Practices

  Corporate and Securities Financing Transactions Intellectual Property and Technology Transactions Venture Fund Representation Mergers & Acquisitions

John transforms public and private corporations for success in the new economic paradigm where corporations not only optimize profits for shareholders but also provide a material positive impact on society and the environment. He works with boards of directors and senior management teams to develop governance architecture using the approach outlined in chapter 20 of his book, Great from the Start: How Conscious Corporations Attract Success. This customized architecture supports the corporation's heroic purpose and values, and ensures continuity of culture. In addition, he combines the best of traditional business and management consulting practices to create implementation plans that impart the new skills and behaviors necessary to embody a triple-bottom line approach to business.

John also uses the Hall-Tonna leadership assessment and other tools to develop personal and professional development plans for directors and members of the C-Suite, with special emphasis on the chairman and CEO. This approach identifies shared values that become the foundation of dynamic corporate cultures that inspire the creativity, collaboration and cooperation necessary to achieve sustained success and alignment with all stakeholders. Finally, this approach applies biology, neuroscience, the development of consciousness and psychology to re-engineer corporations that are optimized for how the brains and psyches of the human beings within them work best and led by leaders who can apply this wisdom to realize the full potential of their people.

John develops legal architecture to support the emerging paradigm where corporations exist to optimize good and profit and not solely to maximize profits for shareholders. John was co-chair of the legal working group behind Assembly Bill 361, which established benefit corporations in California in 2012. Visionary California businesses, such as Patagonia, can now incorporate in, or convert to, a new form of corporation, the benefit corporation, that not only optimizes profits for shareholders but also provides a material positive impact on society and the environment. The preliminary economic data indicates that corporations built for the new paradigm with cultures of sustainability out perform their conventional peers. (See, for example: The Impact of a Corporate Culture of Sustainability on Corporate Behavior and Performance, Robert Eccles, Ioannis Ioannnou and George Serafeim, Harvard Business School Working Paper, November 2011).

John is a frequent speaker on sustainable business, benefit corporations and venture capital at such forums as the Future Salon, TEDx, and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He has also produced continuing education programs on benefit corporations for the Rutter Group and the California State Bar and on venture capital for SmartPros/Cognistar: Understanding the Venture Capital Term Sheet Process and Introduction to Venture Capital Financing Agreements. He previously served as a member of the Corporations Committee of the Business Law Section of the California State Bar and was a California lawyer of the year in 2012 for his work on benefit corporation legislation.

John has practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley since 1984 and is AV rated. His experience includes extensive corporate counseling to public and private companies and venture capital firms. He has represented clients in connection with countless venture capital financings, initial public offerings, more than 200 public and private mergers and acquisitions, going private transactions and a variety of other general corporate matters.

Prior to co-founding M&H, John was the co-chairman of the venture capital practice at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, LLP. Earlier in his career, John was an associate corporate attorney at Baker & McKenzie and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and an in-house attorney at The Cooper Companies, where he learned how to think like a client. He is also an accredited executive coach and student of non-dual philosophical systems. John holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Stanford University and a J.D. from Northwestern College of Law, Lewis & Clark College.