An Interview with Dana Denis-Smith

From Journalism to Law 

Veta T. Richardson (VTR): You launched Obelisk Support in the UK in 2010 and the First 100 project in 2014. Before we get into the rapid growth of your company and the exciting history projects, we’d like to know a little bit more about your personal history. You began your career as a journalist?

Dana Denis-Smith (DDS): Yes, I started right out of high school, went straight into news agency journalism, and came to law quite late. I went to university after I started working as a journalist, and a couple of years later I went to the London School of Economics, and then I stayed on for a MSc in Political Economy. I returned to writing at The Economist Group, and then, one evening, I announced to my new husband that I was going to go into law as well! 

He was already a lawyer, and everybody at the wedding congratulated him on the fact that he was unique in that he didn’t marry another lawyer. So, he was very pleased until I made this announcement. He said it was the craziest idea he had ever heard, and there were plenty of other paths I could pursue. I said then I must become a lawyer because you must disobey your husband! I went and enrolled.      

I was about 25 — I started my legal education on 9/11 — my first day I spent all class thinking about my journalism work rather than my legal education. The worlds collided quite dramatically; I started on quite a significant day.    

VTR: Interesting. From journalism to law and then to establishing your own company, Obelisk Support. What needs did you seek to fill with Obelisk? Tell me about your workforce and philosophy. 

DDS: When I arrived at my law firm, I realized I had no real freedom as a junior lawyer trying to come up and have my ideas adopted. I discovered I was quite entrepreneurial — I had ideas and I liked making things happen. I left before the money got too good.  

I set up my first business, which was a political risk consultancy, because it was very much linked to journalism, investment, and economics. That was when I first explored this idea of a professional network, with freelancers in different emerging markets, bringing together different expertise. We were coming together to give, if you like, “on the ground information” to large corporates. 

An Idea is Born – and an Army

DDS: Whilst managing the political risk consultancy, I undertook a mini-MBA in India. While there, I learned about outsourcing for the legal sector being on the rise. A lot of legal documents were being done by outsourcing centers as a way for corporations to cut costs in response to the increase in regulations and legal work. I had a kind of “shock moment” because I didn’t think legal work would be outsourced that way.  

That was when I realized that many of my colleagues, who were having kids for example, didn’t have jobs. It got me thinking, “Why is all the work going abroad?” We’ve got a lot of people who would love to do the work, but they’re disconnecting from the profession. So, I thought, if cost, affordability, and flexibility is what the client needs, how can I make a business that succeeds in delivering a smooth service to the client? The back office would then be made up of a very different population, one not in India. I saw it as everybody being a delivery center — from their own homes. With the right setup and the right security, we could do it.  

I had this vision that our business could have a large wall panel with a lot of “green lights”: When would they, those colleagues leaving the profession for family or other personal needs, have availability? What skillsets and experiences do they bring to the industry? Then I had to figure out how to put their time and skills into the engine and deliver back to the client. It was reversing outsourcing. I recognize volume outsourcing requires technology, machine learning, and loads of people. But, when the work comes back, you still have quite a lot of volume left, even after you go through the documentation. You need people — there’s still that layer of value added by people with the right experience, who’ve worked with similar clients in the past, and who can cast an eye and advise.  

I thought, this is where we can bring these moms back — and that's what I did. I basically set up a “moms army.” I went to find them and then tried to persuade general counsel to buy our services.  They didn’t like it initially; that was my first reality check. They just weren’t sure about these moms at the school gate and how reliable they would be or if I had enough capacity to deliver the volume of work they needed.

Initially, I was meeting with all women, and some of the stories were heartbreaking. I heard, “I’m just a mom” from women with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, who spoke multiple languages — clearly high achieving women. You don't get taken by a law firm like, for example my old firm, Linklaters, if you’re not good. They were star pupils, star students, overachieving. Yet, because they had a family, suddenly they weren’t “good” anymore. 

A New Version of Success

VTR: It’s very interesting that this profession sets all kinds of boxes up and bars that you must achieve to fit one definition of what they like to believe success looks like when it can take many forms. Can’t it?

DDS: Life has moved on because the general counsel community is stronger now and larger. You do feel it’s a more balanced kind of market, I think, than it was even 10 years ago where you had the primarily private practice partnership model. Too many exceptions, arrangements, requirements, and hassle. I think it’s a bit better now. But at the time, especially when we did research into who the moms were, and what they felt was stopping them from working more, etc., often distance was the issue — the need to raise families in greener areas outside of London, for example. Long commutes, expensive childcare — it was just wearing them down and often not worth the money.

The First 100 Years and Beyond

VTR: Yes. If you look back at the time more than 10 years ago, when you created Obelisk, it was a whole different environment. Not many people were working with the level of flexibility they have now. We’ve seen many changes during the past 10 years, and beyond. Which brings me to your other initiative, which really intrigues me. The First 100 Years project, where you’ve sought to influence and look at women in the profession over the last 100 years. What simulated your interest in looking back, starting in 1919, in order to track the journey that women have had in the legal profession?

DDS: I was preoccupied by the fact that I felt there was an ease with which we’re disconnected as women from a profession we worked really hard to gain access to, that I didn’t see with men. You know, this kind of sense that you don’t belong at the end of the day? That you’re easily discarded and it’s not your place. At the back of my mind I felt that, maybe through my few years of practice, that “partnership” wasn’t for us. It’s true, at least none of the women that I started with are partners at the firm we trained, and we’re talking 15 years ago, not 100 years ago.  

Out of 120 people that started with me, the women didn't make it [to partner]. I was right in sensing that somehow the path laid for me was different and maybe wasn’t leading in the right direction. That’s why I left — why should I queue up? I decided to go and set up my own business and control my own fate. I thought, maybe I’ll make it or maybe I’ll fail, but at least I’m in control of my future. There was something that I felt internally that I didn’t have an outlet for, but I was sensing that maybe women were leaving because they didn’t feel welcome, and I wondered, “What’s causing this?”  

I came across this photograph that showed — my daughter counted the men — 51 men and one woman. I thought, that was 1982. If that was the demographic and there was only one woman, how long did it take them to even get to one woman? And then I realized this law was in place that basically said women weren’t people. Women couldn’t become members of any profession that had a statute that could basically discriminate [against them]. That got me thinking and researching, and things started coming together, around March 2014. 

I thought, if nobody is going to make a big song and dance of this, it’s going to be unnoticed, and we mustn’t let it go unnoticed — it’s a centenary and a massive landmark. That’s why I started pouring thousands of hours of my spare time into it. 

VTR: I guess the journalist in you made you forge ahead and be so inquisitive.

DDS: Yeah, I guess it’s the combination of skills I gathered with my degree and legal education, as well as a very supportive husband who sometimes researched for me as he was still practicing. I felt this sense that this was way bigger than myself, and it had to be bigger than all of us because it was about all of us together — the past, present, and future. I believed that if women had this sense of history, and they can place themselves in it, then maybe they won’t disengage anymore. They’ll feel like they belong. That they’re a part of a legacy that they continue to push forward. 

That's what motivated me. I didn’t think it would be as big as it became. Obviously, I hoped that it would be catching, and that people would love it and we’d tell the story in a nice way. But you can never tell, especially when you're quite junior, working from outside, and don’t have a big organization behind you with marketing budgets, etc. Obelisk was basically the founding financial partner because I decided that the marketing budget was going to this project. And the board said, “This would detract from the core business.” To which I said, “I think it’s very important for the sector.” I overruled them, which didn’t go down so well at the time. But I felt that it was an important thing, and somebody had to do it, and we needed to put our money where our mouth was.

What Does the Future Hold?

VTR: We applaud you for that. You’ve done so many amazing things and impacted so many people with forming a business that allowed more people to be included that otherwise may have been excluded from a profession. Just being a woman businessowner and founder is significant in itself; as well as being thoughtful about the face of law and making sure that you amplified your voice to show that it is a diverse group. I’m curious, as you think about the future, Dana, what's next for you, Obelisk, and the First 100 Years initiative?

DDS: The fun thing is that you never know. That’s part of the fun, not to be predetermined in the kind of exact output you want; but having the right values in mind is what matters to me — and the right purpose. With the business, I want to continue to grow it. I want to take it solidly international. We work internationally, but we’re not placed in different locations. So, scaling it, really, which is a founder’s kind of ambition. The business has grown on average 40 to 50 percent every year for the last five years. It’s a fast-paced business that has a lot of potential, and I want to make sure I attend to it and give it its best shot.  

With the project, The Next 100 Years launching, I would like to create an international exhibition similar to the one created in the UK called Print and Display, which was built around the photographs collected. And if I had a magic wand, I would love to be able to publish a book of a hundred portraits that we captured from around the world. It all depends on fundraising and all of that, but that would be a nice kind of thing to create this year.  

I always like having something that’s physical and real as opposed to selling something that’s digital. Therefore, I’d like to create a way in which we tell the story of a woman globally, a woman in law, and where it started. Further, I’d like to be more strategic and targeted in terms of actual change. You mentioned founders — female founders are significantly underfunded in law. They are disproportionately underfunded compared to the averages seen in other sectors. Creating supply chain conversations around how we get to build women’s companies so that they can be successful entrepreneurs and come up with fresh ideas and ways of doing things, which we need in the legal sector. I think there are a lot of things that remain to  be done; it’s just about being patient with the execution and making sure that we get there rather than having too many irons in the fire and ending up losing our way. 

VTR: Well, Dana, I have to tell you, if I could sum it up, I think what I am so impressed about is how intentional you are about the impact that you’re seeking to have and how you’ve approach in such an innovative way. We at ACC applaud you for your great work and can’t wait to watch what you create in the future. 

Thank you so much for joining us and for allowing us to interview you and feature you to the ACC membership. We greatly appreciate it.