Honoree: Patrick Joseph Monaghan

Chief Legal Officer & General Counsel
SADA
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Patrick Monaghan is a creative, pragmatic problem solver who has dedicated his professional life to service to others, exploration of new frontiers and leveraging technology to solve human problems. After earning his bachelor’s degree in finance and management from the University of Virginia, Monaghan served with distinction as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy, including tours of duty with the Navy SEALs, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the United Nations/Combined Forces Command in Seoul, Korea. He served as an air defense analyst during Operation DESERT FOX in 1998, supporting coalition aircraft successfully conducting airstrikes in the no-fly zone over Iraq.

Returning to the U.S., Monaghan continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania, earning his J.D. at Penn Law School and his MBA at the Wharton School of Business. Following graduation, he was an investment banker at Citigroup in New York, closing over a dozen high-yield bond offerings for Wall Street’s number one underwrite and consummating five M&A buy and sell side transactions, realizing over $50 billion in transaction volume. He moved to Seoul, Korea in 2006 and began a 12-year overseas odyssey, ending as a corporate law partner in Korea’s largest corporate law firm, Kim & Chang.

In 2018, Monaghan realized a lifelong dream of living in sunny Southern California after accepting the role of chief legal officer at SADA, a privately held, second-generation family-owned company. Boosted by his guidance, creativity and savvy, SADA grew its enterprise value over 100 times over the past four years, and its employee headcount nearly 6 times. Monaghan helped SADA close over $500 million in new SaaS licensing and professional services deals and establish affiliates in Armenia, India and Ireland, earning Global Partner of the Year honors at Google in three consecutive years and named a Best Place to Work in Tech. He is particularly proud of building a diverse, business-focused and multi-talented legal, privacy and compliance team at SADA, affectionately nicknamed the “Beagles.”