Leadership & Investing with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 1-10-26

Summary

Becker Business Podcast – Leadership & Investing with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP
Host: Scott Becker
Guest: David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP
Date: January 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Scott Becker interviews David Pivnick, partner at McGuireWoods LLP, about his insights on leadership and personal investing. David, whom Scott describes as “one of the brightest people” he knows and a valedictorian of his law school class, shares his perspective on the core qualities of great leaders, and candidly discusses his own approach to investing with an eye towards caution, long-term security, and general prudence. The conversation provides valuable lessons on building trust as a leader and the mindset for personal financial management.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: Meet David Pivnick

• [01:30] David introduces himself, his legal practice focus, and personal background.
  • Partner at McGuireWoods, specializing in healthcare and private equity litigation.
  • Primarily defends government investigations and False Claims Act disputes.
  • Based in Chicago, originally from Toronto; married with three children.

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2. Leadership Qualities Observed and Admired

• Connecting with People

  • [02:32] One key trait of a great leader is the “innate ability to make conversation, to be collegial, and to connect with people in a real way.”
    • Cites John Harmon, Chairman of McGuireWoods, as an example:

      "It takes exactly seconds in any conversation with him to want to continue the discussion and to know that he’s just an incredibly warm and engaging person." (David Pivnick, 03:23)

  • This makes leaders approachable and helps build instantaneous connections at all organizational levels.

• Vision and Direction

  • Good leaders possess “foresighted vision” and the ability to clearly plan for their team's future.

    • “People need to know where they’re going and need to have a leader that’s sort of well positioned to help them get there.” (David, 03:58)

• Resource and Talent Management

  • The best leaders can “identify the right talent and the right fits for their team,” which includes both adding to and realigning existing teams.
  • Strong teams are formed by leveraging diverse skill sets and deploying people in roles where they can succeed.

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3. Trust, Thoughtfulness, and Building Performance

• [05:23] Trust and authentic rapport are essential for motivating a team.

  • “Making sure that people understand where you’re coming from and that you’re able to connect with them and build that rapport on an immediate level and a deep level is significant.” (David, 05:28)

  • Personal connection or friendship in the workplace makes it easier for team members to perform and engage with shared goals.
  • Lack of trust can lead to “questions and pushback and resistance or worse where folks are second guessing the leader.” (David, 05:50)

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4. Personal Investing Approach

• Risk Tolerance and Investment Strategy

  • [06:58] David shares that his investing style is relatively conservative.
    • Primarily manages his investments personally.
    • Focus is on index funds and “safe” short-term guaranteed instruments with low risk/low interest.
    • Planning to diversify further and possibly work with a financial advisor as investments grow.

• Importance of Safety in Investing

  • Scott and David discuss the psychological importance of capital preservation, especially for those who did not grow up with wealth.

    • “There was just this great concern about making sure a certain portion of that is safe because… the concept of losing money is really scary. No one wants to lose money.” (Scott, 07:41)

  • Striving for a balance between safety and growth is a common theme:

    • “Trying to balance those things,” (David, 08:31) recognizing the trade-off between conservative investments and potentially “leaving money on the table” in returns.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On John Harmon’s Leadership:

  “It takes exactly seconds in any conversation with him to want to continue the discussion and to know that he’s just an incredibly warm and engaging person.”
  (David Pivnick, 03:23)

• On Visionary Leadership:

  “People need to know where they’re going and need to have a leader that’s sort of well positioned to help them get there.”
  (David, 03:58)

• On Workplace Connection and Performance:

  “Being able to do that, I think it really help[s] draw strong performance.”
  (David, 06:20)

• On Investment Psychology:

  “The concept of losing money is really scary. No one wants to lose money.”
  (Scott Becker, 07:41)

• On Investment Balance:

  “We have a long pathway ahead… but also want to be prudent and, you know, recognize that the safer the investment, we're… leaving money on the table as well in terms of what the returns reasonably could be with broader but not irrational amounts of risk.”
  (David, 08:31)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:30 – David introduces himself and his professional/personal background.
• 02:32 – Discussion on leadership qualities, citing John Harmon as model.
• 03:58 – Importance of vision in leadership.
• 04:57 – Building trust and immediate rapport as a leader.
• 06:31 – Transition to discussion on personal investing approach.
• 06:58 – David details his stable, index-focused investment strategy.
• 07:41 – Discussion about the psychology of risk and capital preservation in investing.
• 08:31 – Balancing risk, prudence, and the potential for greater returns in long-term investing.

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Summary Tone and Language

The conversation maintains a collegial, candid, and humble tone. Both Scott and David speak from their personal experiences and observations, offering practical, relatable insights while avoiding grandiose claims.

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Takeaway:
This episode offers listeners accessible guidance on leadership—emphasizing connection, clarity, and talent management—and an honest perspective on responsible investing. David Pivnick’s thoughtful approach provides a model for professionals seeking both effective leadership skills and prudent personal financial management.

Transcript

[A]

This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity podcast. We try to bring you one to two business or market insight episode today, sometimes a comedic episode. In addition, we also bring you about an interview a day with a brilliant business leader. Today's discussion is with David Pivnick. David's one of the brightest people that we ever get a chance to visit with. He was valedictorian of his law school class. He's also a leading partner at McGuire woods and an absolutely gifted, gifted person. We're going to talk to David and the title today's podcast is Leadership in Investing with David Pivkick. We're to talk to David a few of his thoughts on how we view things from a leadership perspective, how we've used things from a investing perspective, how he thinks about those things. He's been highly successful and we like to pick his brain. He's a little bit putting on the spot because I didn't tell him what we'd be talking about today. But, but we'll enjoy it nevertheless. David, why don't you take a moment first and introduce yourself and then we'll talk a little bit about sort of thoughts on leadership. You get a chance to watch, I know that you were watching one of our leaders this past week, Tim Fry, who I know you've got great regard for and some of the qualities that you look at in leaders, in thoughtfulness and carefulness and so forth, and then also about investing and how do you think about investing as you sort of move forward and, you know, evolve in your career and so forth. How do you think about those things? Can you first start by just taking a second to introduce yourself?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Scott, thanks for having me on and always, always a pleasure to connect. You know, I, David Pivk, as you said, I'm a partner at McGuire woods, practicing, you know, heavily in the area of health care and private equity litigation, most commonly defending government investigations and responding to false Claims act disputes. On the defense side, you know, work in the Chicago office, live in Illinois and very happy here. Grew up in Toronto and have a wonderful wife and three kids. So spent a lot of time with them and doing family activities and sports. So that, that's sort of me in a nutshell.

[A]

Thank you. And take a moment on leadership. You spent a lot of time looking at leaders, observing leaders. You, you and I and one of our other partners talked a lot about one of the qualities of a great emerging leader in the firm yesterday. Talk about what are those, some of those qualities that you see that you respect in leaders and that people ought to think about in modeling their own leadership careers.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, we've talked some about this before, but I think there's a lot of skills that. And traits that go into being a great leader. One of them is, is being able to relate well to other people and pick up a discussion and develop a connection pretty quickly with folks, whether it's people up the ladder, down the ladder, on your same sort of tier in the corporate structure. So one of the things is sort of an innate ability to make conversation, to be collegial, and to connect with people in a real way. And I, you know, I think one of the leaders, I mean, this is not who we were speaking about yesterday, but, you know, John Harmon, who's the chairman of Maguire woods, is one of those people where it takes exactly seconds in any conversation with him to want to continue the discussion and to know that he's just an incredibly warm and engaging person. And it comes to him very naturally. It allows him to build really instantaneous connections with everybody I see him interacting with. So I think that innate ability to connect is critical. I think the ability to have foresighted vision and to sort of plan for the entity or the team that you're leading is critical. People need to know where they're going and need to have a leader that's sort of well positioned to help them get there. And that's, I think, critical to the role of a good leader is being able to identify what the goals and the direction is and then helping shepherd people along in that direction. And then I think another important skill that the best leaders have is the ability to both identify the right talent and the right fits for their team. And sometimes that involves, you know, funneling people off of the team. Sometimes it involves adding to the team. So sometimes it's reallocating resources. But figuring out both the right resources and where there are gaps and where there are strengths and leveraging those, but then also deploying people in the right way, because a good team is going to have folks, again, business or sports or law, folks who have different roles, different skill sets, different abilities. And so figuring out the best way to put people in a place to succeed and then spurring on that success is sort of critical to the role of a leader.

[A]

And we talked about one example of leadership, that ability connect that John Harmon has. We also talked about this different type of leader that has great personal skills, but also just immediately sort of develops trust in people and is so thoughtful and so deep. How do you think about those leadership characteristics and why does that resonate so well as well as so many of us?

[B]

I mean, those are absolutely important characteristics. I mean, you know, you're as a leader, as someone who's managing a team, you're going to be asking other people to perform and to do things. And so making sure that people understand where you're coming from and that you're able to connect with them and build that rapport on an immediate level and a deep level is significant. It is a lot easier for people to go work hard and perform where they have a connection, they understand the broader mission and they're sort of supportive and feeling supported by the person who's leading them. I think it leads to a lot of questions and pushback and resistance or worse where folks are second guessing the leader, don't see the messaging, you know, in the right way or think there's a real gap in how things are being positioned. So I think that's absolutely critical to be able to have those connections and make those interpersonal relationships. Sometimes it's a friendship, sometimes it's just a strong personal connection in the workplace. But being able to do that, I think it really helped to draw strong performance.

[A]

Thank you. And I want to switch topics to us for a second to investing. And I know you're not a professional investor but a really, really smart person who's working hard to develop financial safety for the family and all those kinds of things. How do you think about investing? Do you do it yourself? Do you as an advisor, do you pick individual stocks? You invest in index funds? Any thoughts on how you overall think about it?

[B]

I. I've been relatively conservative in the way I invest. I right now I've handled much of it myself and it's heavily focused on index funds and on safer investments that are short term but guaranteed no risk but low interest and a mix of that and index funds. As I've gotten older and as I having more funds to invest, I intend actually this year. That's one of the things my wife and I have talked about is starting to work more closely with the financial advisor and probably diversifying a bit. But right now it's been heavily focused on index funds and, and say for guaranteed investments, understanding there's a relatively lower.

[A]

Return on those makes a lot of sense. I mean for people that didn't grow up with money or particular money, there was just this great concern about making sure a certain portion of that is safe because it's almost. One recognizes how hard it is to actually make some money and Put some money away. And the concept of losing money is really scary. No one wants to lose money. So I think this right balance between investing index funds and treasuries or CDs or whatever it is and hitting that right balance is a real concern for people, regardless of what circumstances you're in, I guess. Right. I mean, we all think about it's so hard to make it. We don't want to lose it. And at the same time, you have to have enough risk involved and enough of equities that we can grow our portfolio and beat inflation and all those and retire.

[B]

Well, Yep. That you hit the nail on the head. And certainly the way Haley and I, my wife and I have approached it to date is on the more conservative side of things, I think. And that's intentionally so. We, we have a long pathway ahead where, you know, we'll be continuing to work and earn and, and adding to the pot, but, but also want to be prudent and, you know, recognize that the safe of the investment, we're like, you know, we're leaving money on the table as well in terms of what the returns reasonably could be with, with, you know, broader but not irrational amounts of risk. So trying, trying to balance those things.

[A]

We couldn't agree more, David, as always. Again, we're talking today Leadership in Investing with David Pivnick. For those who don't know, David, one of the brightest people you'll ever get a chance to visit with. Incredibly gifted. Thank you for joining us today on the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We often skip subjects around with David. Next week might be Sports with David Pivnick, but we enjoy visiting with him. Just brilliant. Thank you to our listeners for listening and thank you for David for joining us and to our wonderful producer, Chanel Bunger. Thank you very, very much.

[B]

Thanks for having me, Scott. Thank you, Chanel.