Embracing Business After a Career in Law: A Conversation with Camille Manso
Access is a major theme in Camille Manso’s life. It started when a college real estate law class unlocked information that helped her family business. That led her to a career in transactional law, where she focused on ‘growing the pie’ for her clients. Camille got interested in cryptocurrency, edtech, and fintech because of their power to expand access to opportunity, tools, and information. Now, she’s bringing that passion to her work at Silicon Foundry.
We spoke to Camille about how managing a family business catalyzed her interest in innovation, what it was like to pivot away from a career in law, and how she’s putting her skills to work in a new context.
Your business aptitude was developed early on, back when you co-managed a hair salon in Miami. Tell us about that.
I’m from a big Cuban family and it was my mom’s dream to open a hair salon. Neither of my parents graduated from college, and neither had that business acumen. I was studying business in college. And my parents were like, ‘hey, you’re in college for this. We think you should run the business.’
We had a full service hair salon. We did hair, nails, and facials, we offered all sorts of services, and we even had a boutique, which manifested from my focus on the customer journey. Managing the business was like drinking from a fire hose. I was 17, managing a staff of 30 people who were at least twice my age, operating in Spanish and English. I was taking my learnings from school and seeing how I could apply them in the real world. I would read case studies about transformation and how to instill culture. And I found that in real life, it wasn’t that easy. Entrepreneurship was much scrappier than the polished textbooks let on. My experience gave me immense respect for founders and operators, and a desire to lend support to their journeys through expertise.
How did that early exposure to running a business shape your career trajectory?
Three months after we opened, another salon opened up in our same shopping center. It negatively impacted our walk-in traffic — a large portion of our revenue stream. I was taking a real estate law class, so I knew to look back at our lease, and I found that we had an exclusivity provision, and that our landlord was in breach by allowing the other salon to locate there. I knew to look at the lease thanks to my education. I found that to be so powerful, and it inspired me to go to law school — to help people and companies protect their interests and unlock opportunities to advance their goals.
I ended up moving to New York to go to law school, where I learned the potential that lies in the gray areas. Learning how to extract principles and apply them to new fact patterns allowed me to approach problem solving in a systematic fashion.
As a lawyer you specialized in transactional law — mergers & acquisitions, divestitures, venture capital financings, and start-up governance. What did you like about it?
In litigation, there’s so much opposition. It can get highly contentious. Transactional law felt less like a zero sum game — there are more opportunities to grow the pie. That resonated with me. I liked the ability to use contracts to minimize risks for business owners, protect their motivations, and help them realize their goals. Once I started out in Big Law, I realized quite quickly that the more interesting deals were around technology and innovation — transactions that could enable industry transformation and, in turn, make products and services more affordable and available.
After working as a lawyer for three and a half years, you decided to make a major career pivot and join Silicon Foundry. What motivated you to leave corporate law? What was missing from your career that you wanted to gain?
I enjoyed being a trusted partner to clients. What was lacking for me was impact. I’ll give you an example: as a lawyer I worked with a CVC that was considering whether it should invest in an aerospace company that was launching satellites into space to make network connectivity possible in remote areas. I remember going into such detail looking at the aerospace company that I ended up writing out a memo for the partner I was working with. I sent it to him and he was like, ‘this is a business memo. Why are you talking about unit economics? We should be focused on the contract terms.’ I found myself interested in questions that were outside the scope of Big Law (oh, the billable hour). I realized that on the business side, there’s so much more room for impactful outcomes, whether it be through identifying partners or incubating a new product line framed by emerging trends.
What was it like to make such a big pivot?
It was challenging. It was a change in purpose, a transformation. I’d been so focused: I’d graduated from undergrad in three years, rushed into law school, then gone straight into Big Law. And then I had this moment where I realized that I wasn’t in the place where I could add the most value. I had to make the pivot without focusing on sunk costs. I had to take a step back and say, what now? Where can I use my skills and have the most impact?
I looked at my own principles, and what set of facts I could apply them to next. I knew it would have something to do with understanding an organization’s current state, partnering to triangulate a desirable destination, understanding its stakeholders’ incentives, and working collectively to see the plan through execution. I wanted to draw on my familiarity with corporates and CVC teams, my work on M&A transactions, and the excitement I felt working with start-ups. When I found Silicon Foundry, it presented an opportunity to help members answer challenging questions and explore topics I’m interested in.
How does your legal training and experience impact the way you work today?
Some things are clearly transferable, like being extremely detail oriented. In law school and working at global law firms, I learned how to diligence a company from a legal perspective. Now I’m diligencing companies’ business models and analyzing where they fit within the competitive landscape.
Lawyers are trained to identify risk and craft methods to limit these risks. That really translates into my work at Silicon Foundry, but instead of identifying risks, we identify gaps and find ways to bridge them. How can we bridge corporates with key actors in the start-up ecosystem? How can mature institutions innovate? I’m enjoying answering those questions.
In law, you’re expected to be an expert with all the answers. At Foundry, I get to dig into different topics and industries and gain fluency in all of them. My focus has shifted from having the right answers to knowing the right questions to ask. One day it’s hydrogen fuel’s potential impact on global emissions and the next day it’s cryptocurrency and after that it’s quantum computing. I’m learning so much, and a big part of it is understanding that these industries and emerging technologies are changing every day.
