Overview
Dan Stellenberg is a partner in the Tax practice of Paul Hastings, focusing on executive compensation and employee benefits. Mr. Stellenberg’s practice encompasses four board areas: (i) support of the firm’s overall transaction practices, including Private Equity, M&A, Capital Markets, and Corporate Restructurings, (ii) employment restructurings, (iii) outside compensation/benefits counsel, and (iv) representations of individual executives and management teams. More specifically, Mr. Stellenberg’s practice focuses on transactional employment matters, including advising on tax, accounting, and employment and securities law issues in connection with executive employment and separation agreements, equity compensation arrangements, and bonus plans.
His experience also encompasses employee integration and retention, due diligence, golden parachute analysis, deferred compensation issues, and public company disclosure guidance. Mr. Stellenberg regularly advises public companies, their boards and their compensation committees, private-equity firms and their portfolio companies, and private companies.
Prior to joining Paul Hastings, Mr. Stellenberg practiced at three other Am Law 100 firms. His previous experience also includes working at a compensation consulting firm, where he provided independent advice to technology companies’ boards of directors and compensation committees. Before becoming an attorney, Mr. Stellenberg worked as a software engineer at a semiconductor company, and he holds four United States patents relating to software modeling of semiconductor devices. Mr. Stellenberg is one of the few practicing law firm executive compensation attorneys who has experience as a participant in an equity compensation program.
Recognitions
- The Legal 500, Labor & Employment - Employee Benefits, Executive Compensation and Retirement Plans: Transactions (2021)
- Chambers USA, Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation (2021)
- Recognized by Chambers USA 2023, 2022, and 2021
Education
- Santa Clara University, School of Law, J.D., 2001
- Santa Clara University, M.S., 1997
- Carnegie Mellon University, B.S., 1994
Representations
Recent representative experience includes advising on the tax, benefits, and executive compensation aspects of the following matters:
- Advising Symphony Technology Group in its acquisition of Momentive (Nasdaq: MNTV), the maker of SurveyMonkey, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.5 billion.
- Advising Vector Capital and its portfolio company MarkLogic, a leader in managing complex data and metadata, in the $355 million sale of MarkLogic to Progress (NASDAQ: PRGS).
- Advised Francisco Partners in its equity investment in Veson Nautical, the global leader in maritime freight software.
- Advised Symphony Technology Group, a private equity firm specializing in partnering with market leading companies in data, software, and analytics, in the acquisition of eProductivity Software (“EPS”), the Productivity Software Business of Electronics for Imaging, Inc.
- Advised Teleperformance Group, Inc. in its $400 million acquisition of Senture, LLC, a significant business process outsourcing operator for government services in the United States, from Kingswood Capital Management, L.P.
- Advised AdTheorent, a leading programmatic digital advertising company using advanced machine learning technology, in the completion of its business combination with MCAP Acquisition Corporation.
- Advised Vector Capital and its portfolio company, Cheetah Digital in the merger between Cheetah Digital and CM Group, a portfolio of martech companies focused on multichannel digital marketing.
Matters may have been completed before joining Paul Hastings.