Wake Forest Magazine Highlights Smith Anderson’s Gerald Roach as University’s New Board Chair

Smith Anderson managing partner Gerald Roach is featured in the Wake Forest Magazine article, “Meet the University’s new board chair.” In his interview with Maria Henson (’82), Gerald emphasizes the importance of discourse, not discord, and looks to share this view in his role as board chair. Noting the need to continually enhance, adapt and improve our role in society, he is leading the charge at Wake Forest on the call for civil discourse. “We need to be a leader in civil discourse and help educate our students to be leaders in a world where conversation is important,” said Gerald. “Being able to disagree and still respect each other is vital.”

Gerald also was recently featured in Business North Carolina as among the state’s 100 most influential business and nonprofit leaders in its “North Carolina Power 100” list, where he conveyed that being part of the largest Triangle-based law firm located in one of the best economies in the country provides a great platform to lead in major institutions outside of the firm, Wake Forest University being one of them.

As the managing partner of Smith Anderson, Gerald maintains a robust legal practice, advising on mergers and capital raisings totaling billions of dollars. He reveals in the article how he has been blessed to work with some of the most respected leaders in the country and has seen firsthand how they have run their business, served their communities and acted with character. “Character and leadership are a rich tradition at Wake Forest,” added Gerald. In his role as board chair he will continue to promote character and working together as one of the best ways to keep the state and University moving forward.

In addition to his work at Smith Anderson and on the Board of Trustees at Wake Forest University, Gerald also served on the board of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and as chair of its Nominating and Governance Committee and a member of its Executive Committee for 11 years. Gerald is an active member of White Memorial Presbyterian Church, serving as an Elder and Chair of the Imagine Campaign, an initiative that will transform the church’s presence and impact the community.

Gerald’s legal practice involves domestic and international mergers and acquisitions and capital raisings, joint ventures, corporate governance matters, public company securities, private financings, technology law and advising boards of directors and special committees. He regularly represents public and private growth companies and private equity firms with their general corporate needs and domestic and international transactions.

A PDF of the full article may be viewed here.