KO Firm attorney Jennifer Rosenthal is “proud to serve as her clients’ primary point of contact to guide them through any legal and business situation that may arise,” wrote Jon Taylor in his nomination of Rosenthal for Law Week Colorado’s 2024 Lawyers of the Year.
“When I joined back in 2012, there was maybe 11 of us and now we’re approaching 50 people,” said Rosenthal. “We’ve grown and have really become deeply rooted not just [in] the Colorado community but also nationally.”
A corporate partner at the firm’s Boulder office, Rosenthal has been a practicing attorney for 15 years. She focuses her practice on corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and private equity investments and company formations. Rosenthal graduated from the University of Colorado Law School where she served as an associate editor for the University of Colorado Law Review.
“Jennifer stands out in her fields of mergers & acquisitions and venture capital, two areas where women have historically been underrepresented, due to her business acumen, negotiation skills, and relationship building skills,” wrote Taylor to Law Week via email.
Rosenthal was promoted to be KO’s first female equity partner in 2016, the fastest ascension to partnership by anyone in the firm’s 20-year history, according to Taylor.
“The greatest thing about my job is providing the legal and business advice and guidance that goes along with growing or selling a company, and in part that is legal, but in part, that’s [also] practical,” noted Rosenthal.
Also a partner at KO Firm, Taylor initially met Jennifer when she left Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to join KO to be more involved in working directly with business owners and entrepreneurs.
“My first impression was that Jennifer was a natural leader who would be critical to growing our firm and providing excellent counsel to our clients,” added Taylor.
“Jon has been a great mentor in my early years at KO and now is a great partner,” noted Rosenthal. “We often collaborate and bounce ideas off of each other to make sure that our clients are getting the best service.”
Rosenthal and Taylor have worked on numerous deals together. For example, they represented Blue Bottle Coffee for several years on numerous financings, acquisitions and general corporate matters. Rosenthal and Taylor were selected to represent Blue Bottle in the sale of a majority stake of its equity to Nestlé. Rosenthal’s food and beverage industry experience and skills were integral to a successful transaction with Nestle, noted Taylor.
“She is an excellent corporate attorney and skilled negotiator who serves as a trusted business advisor for her clients, helping them with both day-to-day and long-term, strategic legal and business matters,” noted Taylor.
“I would call it legal plus,” added Rosenthal. “We’re providing legal advice, but we’re also providing advice on all of the aspects surrounding getting a transaction done and we’re doing that for people whose lives these deals change.”
Rosenthall’s typical client profile, Taylor noted, are companies that are innovating in their respective industries and poised for significant growth and exit opportunities. Jennifer’s client companies span the business lifecycle from early-stage companies that are scaling and raising several rounds of funding to proven, late-stage companies that are nationally recognized, preparing for an exit or thriving as established companies.
“When somebody sells their company, it’s a life-changing event and to be a part of that is incredible,” added Rosenthal.
“Jennifer serves as an advocate for these companies and goes beyond a legal role, regularly advising clients on broader business goals,” noted Taylor. “Jennifer’s commitment to client service and her sought-after expertise has attracted many well-known local and national companies.”
According to Taylor’s nomination, in the last year, Rosenthal has represented dozens of top national startups and established companies in closing financings and acquisitions. Jennifer’s fast-growing clients are some of the most innovative companies nationwide in AI, cybersecurity, cleantech, foodtech and consumer goods. She guided her clients through significant transactions while navigating challenging economic headwinds and uncertainty.
“These business transactions are oftentimes the most significant of the client’s careers and change the trajectory of their lives and businesses,” noted Taylor in his nomination.
Rosenthal represented Goodles, a boxed mac and cheese brand co-founded by actress Gal Gadot, as well as food and beverage industry leaders concerning its formation, growth and financing. She also represented an AI-powered customer experience solution AtlasRX in its acquisition by NICE Ltd.
“KO partner Jennifer Rosenthal and her team helped our company achieve a significant transaction that will change the trajectory of our business going forward,” said Bassam Salem, AtlasRTX’s founder and general manager, according to Rosenthal’s nomination
“The most rewarding moment is seeing a company find a successful home that we’ve been helping from the very early stages,” added Rosenthal.
Taylor noted Rosenthal also advocates and supports female founders and investors. She is actively involved in the community through her numerous volunteer and mentorship roles.
“Her mission and passion is to empower entrepreneurs and investors to make a meaningful difference through their respective businesses,” added Taylor.
Rosenthal runs the firm’s women’s group that gets together once a quarter. It’s partly social promoting bonding and it’s partly discussing the unique challenges that women face in being attorneys and being able to openly talk about those things and collaborate on strategies that are helpful moving forward.
According to Taylor, she recently co-founded, along with two executives at J.P. Morgan, a Colorado Women in Venture Capital group that aims to build a more diverse and inclusive venture ecosystem and increase support for women in the venture community.
“The group brings together dozens of women leaders in [the] Colorado venture capital community and meets regularly to discuss topical issues, ranging from the venture funding outlook to collaboration among women,” noted Taylor.
“I hear back from people who are in that group and they say that it is their … most favorite group they’re in,” added Rosenthal.
One example includes a participant who is somewhat new to the venture space who told Rosenthal the group has been invaluable to her — to have a community to go and to talk to and to ask questions of and collaborate in a space that feels entirely safe.
“That is so great and rewarding to hear,” noted Rosenthal. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish when we bring women together for this type of group.”
Taylor added Rosenthal has also recently served as a board member of Naturally Boulder — a trade association for the natural foods industry. She also previously served as a longtime mentor for Techstars, a global investment business that provides mentorship-driven accelerator programs and a network for entrepreneurs.
She volunteered and provided pro bono work to venture capital and entrepreneurship organizations, including as the supervising attorney for the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and as an adjunct professor of Venture Capital Drafting at the University of Colorado Law School, as well as a member of the entrepreneurship advisory board for the Silicon Flatirons center.
In Taylor’s nomination he listed various awards and recognitions that Rosenthal has earned throughout her career including Denver Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business for 2023, Boulder Valley’s 40 under 40 Honoree, Super Lawyers Rising Star and Silicon Flatirons’ Entrepreneurship Supporter of the Year.
“Jennifer’s legacy will be defined by her roles as a strategic business partner and trusted advisor to companies across the nation, an advocate for women in business, and mother to two young children,” noted Taylor. “I look forward to seeing how her legacy continues to evolve over the course of her career.”
“It’s an honor and I hope that it is reflective not just of my technical legal skills and helping clients get transactions done, but I hope that there is an element of it that is tied to community service,” noted Rosenthal about her nomination. “Trying to make our firm and this profession and the venture capital community in whole a more welcoming place for women.”