Our Story
Like most great companies, The Suite was born out of personal need
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Humble beginnings
The Suite started in 2015 with a single community - TechGC (now part of The L Suite) - when our founders Kiran Lingam and Greg Raiten gathered a few of their closest General Counsel peers in NYC for a casual lunch to swap war stories and advice. The idea behind it was simple - being a GC is a tough job, and you’re often confronted with issues you’ve never faced before. Surely, they thought, others were experiencing similar challenges and they could all benefit from a supportive network of peers.
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Immediate traction
The response was overwhelming. A tight-knit, organic community was born nearly overnight, and monthly in-person gatherings in NYC expanded to San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and beyond. These were safe spaces, where you could bring your vulnerabilities and leave with actionable insights. The L Suite quickly became the premier, invite-only community platform for GCs & CLOs of the leading high-growth companies and venture funds.
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Community expansion
As The L Suite blossomed, the word got out and we began getting requests from CFOs, CEOs, and other executive leaders to form communities for them. We realized that we weren’t just solving a GC problem, we were solving a C-Suite problem. So in 2021, we launched our second community - The F Suite - exclusively for CFOs. It grew even more rapidly than The L Suite, as CFOs were hungry for the same kind of peer learning and support.
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The sky's the limit
With two thriving communities taking shape, the bigger opportunity became clear - if we could build a family of carefully curated executive communities, we could meaningful impact the lives and careers of tens of thousands of C-Suite leaders and their teams. Shortly thereafter we launched The E Suite as our CEO community, with plans for several more in the works (stay tuned!).
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We’ve come a long way since those early days, and yet we’re only just getting started...
The F Suite Annual National Summit at the New York Stock Exchange
Meet our founders
Executive Leadership Team
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![Shaun Sethna General Counsel at The Suite]()
With over a decade of experience as a senior legal executive at enterprise SaaS companies, and a DeputyGC member himself, Shaun was the perfect candidate to help lead The Suite through its next phase of growth.
As a tech-focused generalist, engaged community-builder and passionate people leader, Shaun brings a wealth of legal expertise to his role as The Suite’s General Counsel and Head of People. In addition to serving as a growth-minded business partner on the legal side, Shaun leads The L Suite content team in delivering high-value programming at events.
Shaun spends his free time chasing after his two young kids and writing on LinkedIn about life as a business leader, working parent and GC. He also volunteers for the Legal Mentor Network.
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![Ramya Sethuraman Chief Product Officer at The Suite]()
With the robust foundation of 15 years of software engineering experience – including engineering roles at IBM and Facebook – Ramya transitioned into product leadership, taking on a succession of senior product roles at Meta where she drove product strategy and made pivotal contributions to building community on Facebook.
At Meta, Ramya led 0->1 product initiatives in Facebook’s News Feed, Communities and Growth to improve how the platform connects members to relevant information, features and experiences. She brings this extraordinary expertise to her role as Chief Product Officer at The Suite, with a focus on scaling the engineering and product teams as we build the executive community platform of the future.
Ramya is an advocate for the power of storytelling, and she brings this love of words to her free time, too. She blogs on Medium about product management, and has also published a children’s book series, a book about immigrant experiences in the U.S. and a collection of short stories, one of which she recently produced as a short film.
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![Anthony Thomas VP Business Development and Partnerships at The Suite]()
Anthony honed his skills as a people connector over 16 years in higher education fundraising, driving millions of dollars in giving through strategic partnerships. He also created and launched the NYU Law Venture Fund (now known as the NYU Law Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Program), one of the only seed-stage funding programs at a U.S. law school.
Anthony is a relationship-builder who works tirelessly to ensure the success of our strategic partners. His team strives to bring together the most impactful experts, advisors and vendors so that they can build and nurture relationships with our executives.
In his spare time, you can find Anthony exploring the newest restaurant in NYC, visiting a new city, exploring more of Italy or surfing in the Rockaways.
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![Kara Walsh, CMO at The Suite]()
After launching a new brand for Coca-Cola in her first marketing role, Kara spent the next 20+ years leading innovative marketing campaigns that engage audiences through online interactions that catalyze real-life experiences. She’s been persistently pulled towards work with entrepreneurial-minded organizations seeking their next stage of growth.
Kara is well-versed at building a brand through the power of community, perfectly positioning her to help lead The Suite through its exciting next chapter. As Chief Marketing Officer, her strategic focus is building our community brands and fostering dynamic growth among members and partners.
A recent transplant to Florida by way of New York and Chicago, Kara is also a devoted international traveler; she’s visited 54 countries and counting. She also enjoys playing and watching tennis.
