Shepherd Appoints Mike Rowan as Chief Technology Officer

By Emad ElShawa

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Shepherd, the AI-powered law firm redefining how startups access legal services, appoints Mike Rowan as Chief Technology Officer. Mike joins at a pivotal moment as Shepherd scales its technology platform to meet the demands of a new generation of founders.

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Mike has lived the startup journey firsthand, seven times over, with three exits. That experience isn't incidental to his role at Shepherd; it's central to it. He understands, from the inside, how legal complexity compounds at every stage of a company's growth, from formation and fundraising to contracts and compliance. Across his career, including as CPO at Techstars, he’s worked alongside hundreds of ambitious founders and saw firsthand how the friction of legal services slowed them down. Before that, as VP of Product at SendGrid, he scaled a developer platform that now handles billions of messages globally; demonstrating an ability to build technology that performs at scale without losing its user focus.

"Mike brings something that's genuinely rare," said Emad ElShawa, Founder & CEO of Shepherd. "He combines platform-scale product instincts with a founder's urgency and he's earned both the hard way. As we build the technology layer that powers Shepherd's next chapter, he's exactly the leader we need."

“What Shepherd is doing sits at the intersection of AI, legal access, and startup culture- three things I care deeply about,” adds Mike Rowan. “There's a real opportunity to rethink how founders access legal services, meeting them where they already work and opening up entirely new ways to engage. I'm excited to help build what makes that possible.”

Shepherd's mission is to democratize access to world-class legal services for startups by combining AI with the judgment of experienced attorneys. The firm replaces slow, opaque, billable-hour legal services with speed, transparency, and fairness, without compromising on quality or integrity.

About Shepherd: Shepherd is an AI-powered law firm built for startups. We combine AI with expert attorney judgment to give founders fast, fair, and transparent access to world-class legal services. https://yourshepherd.ai/

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