Carla Newell is a seasoned business leader and experienced board director with more than 30 years of success facilitating growth in the technology and digital business arena. Ms. Newell has been a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards of both private and public companies on a broad range of business, strategic and legal issues. Ms. Newell is currently the Chief Legal Officer and Chief Risk Officer for Ancestry, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics with over $850M in revenue. Ms. Newell is responsible for global legal, consumer privacy, cybersecurity, enterprise risk management and regulatory affairs. She is part of Ancestry’s seven-person senior executive team and plays an active role in setting the company’s overall strategy, including as it relates to global expansion. In her role as Chief Legal Officer, she also advises the board on a range of matters including governance and risk management.
Between 2000 and 2014, Ms. Newell made numerous contributions as Operating General Partner for Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), a leading venture capital and private equity firm with over $10B in assets and significant investments in companies including Expedia, Netflix, Redback Networks, RiskMetrics and Zillow. Ms. Newell worked with companies across a wide range of sectors including cyber security, enterprise software and services, financial technology, ecommerce and social media, witnessing the evolution of business models across these sectors and their impact on more traditional businesses. She quickly distinguished herself by building the firm’s first internal legal and deal structuring function.
Ms. Newell also had a wide range of other operating responsibilities at TCV and served as a member of the Operating Committee, which was responsible for managing all of the firm’s non-investment functions. As leader of the firm’s investor relations, she was able to build and maintain relationships with institutional limited partners in North America, Europe and Asia. While overseeing human resources, Ms. Newell gained operational experience with human resources issues, including compensation and employment policies.
Ms. Newell has broad knowledge of corporate governance matters, based on her 15 years as an advisor and outside general counsel to boards of private and public companies. She built on this foundation while at TCV, serving as the firm’s designated director on a number of private company boards, including serving on audit and compensation committees for certain boards.
Ms. Newell’s background is also notable for hands-on experience with financial matters that has included participating in financial due diligence, preparing financial reporting for investors, valuing portfolio companies and managing various aspects of portfolio risk. While at TCV, she was a member of the firm’s Portfolio Valuation Committee.
Ms. Newell is a cum laude graduate of the University of Chicago and received her JD, cum laude, from the University of Michigan. Ms. Newell attended the Stanford University Directors’ College in 2015.