Rod J. Howard

Mr. Howard is a leading advisor on mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector, with more than 30 years of experience in M&A and related strategic areas. He has handled hundreds of M&A engagements, involving over $75 billion in completed M&A transactions. Mr. Howard has advised buyers and sellers, boards, investors, and entrepreneurs in all aspects of M&A. His engagements range from simple bilateral purchases and sales to complex, multi-party purchase-licensing-collaboration-and-supply-chain transactions, and include foreign and cross-border as well as U.S. domestic transactions, auctions and controlled sale processes, public and private company transactions, and contested as well as friendly transactions. He has advised on hundreds of matters and over $75 billion in completed transactions. In addition to his work in mergers and acquisitions, he has also advised clients on sensitive corporate governance and SEC disclosure matters. Mr. Howard has written, taught and spoken for many years on M&A topics, and has been recognized by various market and professional guides, publications and peer surveys as an expert in M&A. In addition to his role with Ridgecrest, Mr. Howard is the founder and chairman of CapKey Advisors, a specialized firm of senior M&A lawyers who combine decades of M&A experience as lawyers with extensive business, financial and technology experience. Before founding CapKey in early 2012, Mr. Howard was a partner in the Silicon Valley offices of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where he was the firm’s senior M&A specialist on the West Coast, and Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, where he chaired the firm-wide M&A group. He began his practicing career at New York M&A firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, and practiced for a dozen years in New York City before moving to Northern California in 1996.Mr. Howard received his J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1982.