Lisa Bodensteiner J.D. ’89
Santa Clara Law alumna Lisa Bodensteiner J.D. ’89 was announced as Synaptics’ new senior vice president, chief legal officer, and secretary in a press release last month. She sat down to share her story with Santa Clara Law.
Bodensteiner graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting. “I graduated with a degree in accounting, but I quickly realized that pursuing a career as an accountant was not the right path for me,” said Bodensteiner. “It’s often good to know what you don’t want to do.” Among other activities during her undergraduate years, Bodensteiner was involved in student government, and had the opportunity to work in Nevada’s state legislature.
“During college, I had the opportunity to work at the Nevada legislature with a blind State Senator, and I would read the proposed bills into a tape recorder daily,” said Bodensteiner. “I would go with him to meetings and on the floor of the legislature to push the buttons for the votes and that sort of thing. It was a special opportunity to see law-making as an insider. Those interesting experiences in the legal world while I was in college influenced my next steps after graduation.”
Bodensteiner’s family also influenced her choice as her brother had also attended law school. In 1986, she enrolled at Santa Clara University School of Law.
During law school, Bodensteiner worked with Santa Clara Law’s recruiting program before joining Hopkins & Carly as a summer associate after her 2L year.
“It was really the school’s recruiting program; it was the key for me to find that summer associate position because I wasn’t from this area and did not have any contacts,” commented Bodensteiner.
After graduation, Bodensteiner joined Hopkins & Carly full-time as an associate.
“Given my background in business, I was naturally drawn to a career as a transactional attorney rather than a litigator,” Bodensteiner explained. “Hopkins & Carley is a business focused firm and I found the perfect place to start my legal career where I received top notch training and early access to clients. Although I favor transactional work, I have had significant experience with litigation as an in-house attorney and those experiences have made me a better business attorney.”
Bodensteiner worked with Hopkins & Carly’s real estate team, enjoying dealing with complex land and environmental issues, before moving on to Thelen LLP, a firm that was known for its construction, energy, and project finance work. When Thelen later closed its doors, much of that team joined Orrick. At Thelen, she had the good fortune to be assigned to work on the acquisitions of cogeneration power plants for Calpine Corporation. After receiving a call from Calpine’s general counsel, Joe Ronan (husband of Colleen T. Davies-Ronan J.D. ’83 who received the Alumni Special Achievement Award from Santa Clara School of Law), Bodensteiner joined Calpine within a week from her first interview.
“Within a week I had joined Calpine and then two weeks later the company announced they were selling the company. And I had to prepare a data room and my initial thought was, ‘What did I just do?’” said Bodensteiner. However, “the management team was able to convince the owners to let us go public. That fall we went public… then it was off to the races.”
“At one point we had 50 power plants under construction during one year. We were repowering America with the cleanest natural gas fired fleet,” continued Bodensteiner. “Our emissions were half of the installed base of power plants with older technology. We also owned a significant fleet of renewable geothermal power plants at The Geysers, one of the world’s largest complexes of geothermal power plants. That is when I first fell in love with clean energy.”
Bodensteiner shared how she enjoys the experience of being in-house, especially at a public company. “What I love about being in-house is being part of a team and seeing the deals through and then living with the deal,” said Bodensteiner. “It is very exciting to be a part of a smart, hardworking team that grows a company together. It’s incredibly gratifying.”
During her 10 years at Calpine, Bodensteiner worked as a part of the team that led the IPO for the company, fueling the company’s growth from 200 employees and 1MW of power generation to 4,000 employees and 27,000 MWs generating $6B revenue. She went on to lead and manage a team of over 100 individuals, overseeing a $40 million insurance program for assets valued at $20 billion. She also negotiated the company’s acquisitions, mergers, financing and refinancing transactions totaling over $7 billion and corporate debt and equity offerings totaling over $11 billion.
After leaving Calpine, Bodensteiner searched for her next pursuit: “What had sprung up in a short time was solar startup companies. It was just at the very beginning of large scale solar energy development in the U.S. I thought, ‘Wow, this is so exciting. I can take everything I learned at Calpine and now apply it to even cleaner… renewable solar energy.’”
Bodensteiner went on to serve as general counsel for First Solar project development before joining SunPower Corporation as their executive vice president, general counsel, and chief compliance officer. During her time at SunPower, a leading global, vertically integrated solar power industry business, she led the sale of the largest solar project in the world to Buffet’s MidAmerican for more than $2 billion and led significant M&A, project finance, and corporate finance transactions of more than $10 billion.
After SunPower, Bodensteiner worked for MDAC LLC, a real estate development and advisory firm, before joining Poly.
“When I interviewed with Poly during the pandemic, I was attracted to their mission because I am very purpose driven. Poly helps people communicate and collaborate more effectively with its video bars, audio equipment, and headsets—everything necessary for connecting to work, education, and healthcare. In fact, we are using a Poly video bar for this meeting,” said Bodensteiner. “I believe that everyone should have the fundamental right to access a laptop and communication tools to connect them with healthcare, employment, and educational opportunities wherever they are in the world.’”
Bodensteiner went on to work on the $3 billion M&A deal to sell Poly to HP, Inc. Bodensteiner now joins Synaptics, a semiconductor company that focuses chips that sense, process and connect.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be at Synaptics with the explosion in everything AI,” said Bodensteiner about her new position. “Semiconductors are at the heart of AI and machine learning advancements. After a decade at Calpine and a decade in solar energy, I’m just getting started in my decade in technology fueled by AI and can’t wait to see what new and exciting experiences are in store for me now!”
