Jim Kidston

About Jim Kidston

I\'m a hands-on lawyer and executive with nearly two decades of experience helping tech and media businesses evolve and grow, currently as VP Business & Legal at Ground News. In that time, I’ve worked in-house and as outside counsel to innovative businesses like Vidmob, Meta, Oculus, Ubisoft, Exploding Kittens, and NZXT, and handled hundreds of major commercial transactions, closed over ten figures of venture financing and M&A, and navigated countless other mission-critical challenges from AI governance to data privacy to IP and more. And because I believe every bio should have an “Interests” line: outside of work you can find me hiking the San Gabriel Mountains, hunting for the perfect burger, or shaking off some rust at the piano.

Experience

1. General Counsel

   Vidmob

   Jul 2019 — Present

   VidMob is the leading SaaS platform for creative effectiveness, using proprietary AI models to help marketers score, analyze, and optimize their ad creative for better performance.As the first lawyer at Vidmob, I built the legal function from the ground up and helped drive a period of hypergrowth from 100 to 350+ employees while tripling revenue and customers and expanding to seven countries. Along the way, I’ve negotiated multimillion-dollar customer agreements with Fortune 500 brands and social platforms, structured complex data partnerships with major analytics companies, and closed corporate transactions including ~$225mm in venture financing, revolving credit facilities, and a successful cross-border cash + stock acquisition. Alongside the transactional work, I oversee Vidmob’s day to day legal processes and work hand in hand with the company’s go-to-market, engineering, product, and people teams providing guidance on AI development and regulations, privacy, security, employment, equity compensation, and more.

Education

• University of Michigan

  Bachelor of Arts - BA, History

• USC Gould School of Law

  Doctor of Law - JD