The 2nd Annual Women, Diversity & Change Summit: San Francisco

Avital Gertner-Samet works as General Counsel at pymetrics, Inc., creators of a groundbreaking platform that employs neuroscience and data-analytics to assess talent efficiently and fairly. Ms. Samet oversees all legal matters at the pymetrics and helps bridge between pymetrics’s pioneering technology and traditional Equal Employment Opportunity law, which was legislated in the 1970s.

Ms. Samet served as Secretary of the Consumer Financial Services Committee at the California Bar. She presented at various educational programs alongside regulators and other industry-leading practitioners, including at the Annual Meeting of the California Bar. Ms. Samet has also authored numerous Committee-issued e-bulletins on legal developments in the field.

Before Pymetrics she acted as General Counsel at TrueAccord Corp., as well as represented multinational corporations as well as Non-Profit Organizations on cutting edge tax matters. 

The connecting thread in Ms. Samet’s legal career is her passion for policy work.  

Ms. Samet is licensed to practice law both in California and in Israel. 

April Madison-Ramsey is a certified mediator and has more than 25 years of experience in traditional labor & employment litigation management, risk avoidance, employment law training, employment compliance and alternative dispute resolution. She has spent the better part of her career providing training and preventative counseling and advice concerning disability discrimination, leave administration, corporate diversity, harassment prevention, internal investigations, collective bargaining agreements, wrongful termination, and employee discipline and risk management. In addition, she is a seasoned labor negotiator in both the public and private sectors.

April is a Wisconsin native with Louisiana roots. After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1992, April worked on the central staff of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and then as an associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP representing employers in securities litigation, employment litigation and appellate matters. She has also represented public sector management interests as a Deputy City Attorney for both the City and County of San Francisco and the City of Oakland. April’s practice includes all aspects of grievance management and labor relations, including collective bargaining, labor mediation and arbitration, litigation, preventative counseling, leave administration, employee discipline, federal and state agency investigation and response, and wage and hour matters. April has served as special counsel to the San Francisco Civil Service Commission and counsel to the City of Oakland’s Civil Service Board advising commission and board members concerning the negotiation and administration of civil service rules and human resource policy and procedure.

Her national speaking and teaching experience includes her time as an adjunct professor of Legal Research/Writing and Moot Court at both Hastings College of Law and Golden Gate Law School. In addition, she has spoken on wide range of employment law topics for the National Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the State Bar of California, the League of California Cities, the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys, the California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training, the Council on Education in Management, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and the National Employment Law Council. She has also served as a member of the board of directors for civic and community organizations, including the UNCF Leadership Council, the Charles Houston Bar Association and the San Francisco Women Lawyer’s Alliance.

She is a member of the Association of Attorney-Mediators, the Labor & Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California, the Society for Healthcare Attorneys, the Minority Corporate Counsel Association and the Corporate Counsel Women of Color. April is also certified as a Senior Human Resource Professional by the Human Resources Certificate Institute of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). She received her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a member of the State Bar of California and the State Bar of Wisconsin, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the Western District of Wisconsin. April recently received the National Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Section’s Trailblazer Award and was honored as a Top Employment Counsel by First Chair.

Olga V. Mack is a blockchain and distributed ledger technology strategist, security professional, experienced board director, nationally-recognized author, public speaker, and impactful women’s advocate. She is currently Vice President of Strategy at Quantstamp, the first decentralized security auditing blockchain platform. Olga was instrumental in passing AB 2658 and SB 838, which define blockchain and form a working blockchain group in California. She co-authored Fundamentals of Smart Contracts Security (Momentum Press, March 2019) and she is writing a book about blockchain and distributed ledger technology business models. Olga leads the Smart Contracts Security Alliance to help enterprises innovate in blockchain securely. She spoke at TEDxSanFrancisco about the impact potential of blockchain and smart contracts and at SXSW about blockchain business models. 

Olga is an impactful leader who can mobilize change both within an organization and throughout society at large. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement, which advocates for women to serve on the corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She has successfully persuaded over a dozen Fortune 500 companies to recruit their first woman director. She actively advocated, testified, and mobilized for the passage of California SB 826, which requires California public companies to recruit women directors. Finally, she authored All [A]Board: Your Journey to Becoming a Corporate Director, to demystify board service. 

Olga has received widespread recognition for her professional achievements. In 2016, she was selected as a White House United State of Women Change Maker. She also received the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) Top 10 30-Somethings, Watermark Impact and Advocacy Make Your Mark, Corporate Counsel of the Year, and Women Leaders in Technology Law Awards. She has been featured and quoted in Bloomberg, MPR/KQED, Law.com and numerous trade publications. Olga was previously General Counsel at ClearSlide. She also worked at Zoosk, Visa, Yahoo, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. She serves on the California Law Revision Commission (appointed by Governor Jerry Brown).

Corina Davis is the EVP of Business Development and Chief Legal Officer at Redbubble, a global marketplace where artists and designers can sell their artwork on an extensive assortment of products, from t-shirts to iPhone cases. Serving as the EVP of Business Development and Chief Legal Officer, she enjoys collaborating with all parts of the company, partnering and advising on a wide variety of business and legal matters, as well as working with external partners to create new business opportunities. Ms. Davis thrives in a fast-paced environment and loves working across multiple geographies with colleagues all over the globe. She received her J.D. from University of San Diego School of Law. 

Maggie specializes in the representation of emerging growth companies throughout their lifecycles. Maggie is broadly experienced with corporate formation and governance matters, venture capital financing transactions, and a variety of M&A transaction structures.

Maggie represents a wide variety of technology companies from consumer internet, software, telecommunications, and entertainment technology industries, as well as a number of leading venture capital firms.

Lisl has significant experience advising leading U.S. and multinational companies in a broad range of industries, including the media, technology, and healthcare sectors. For her healthcare clients, Lisl provides antitrust and strategic advice in evaluating value-based payment initiatives, the establishment and operation of ACOs and independent physician networks, financial and clinical integration issues, and other transactions and collaborations.

Diana is located in Oregon and her practice focuses on privacy, data protection, and security issues globally, supporting IT, Info Sec, SSG, CCG, PSG, among others.  Diana has been active in privacy and security since 2009 at two companies prior to joining Intel in 2015.  She has published articles relating to privacy in various publications, including ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) and IAPP (International Association of Privacy Professionals) from 2009 to 2017.

Diana obtained both her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Washington and her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Washington Law School in Seattle, Washington.   She is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Eastern and Western Washington Districts Courts, and is a Member of the  Washington State and Oregon Bar Associations.  Diana holds a CIPP-E certification (Certified International Privacy Professional, Europe) from IAPP. 

Tamara's legal experience is anchored in labor and employment advice, counseling and litigation for employers.  She started her career at a mid-sized defense firm in San Francisco.  At Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. she spent 15 years in the Labor & Employment Practice Group, advising managers and HR on both day to day performance oversight as well as big picture policy and strategy issues, and managing employment litigation.  Since 2017, Tamara’s practice has focused on managing employment litigation. Tamara is a seasoned litigator and tough negotiator, known and respected for her pragmatic, collaborative, results-oriented style and strong writing skills.

A significant portion of Tamara’s work at Kaiser is devoted to the Legal Department’s Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Program.  As the Department’s Strategic Leader for Equity Inclusion and Diversity, since 2011 Tamara has developed and led the Department EI&D Committee, working tirelessly to promote the Program mission, "to strategically drive the integration of equity, inclusion and diversity into every aspect of our work resulting in a positive and enduring impact on our workforce/department, the legal profession and the communities we serve."  The positive, measurable, undeniable and enduring impact of this work on her colleagues, the community and the pipeline of future diverse lawyers drives Tamara's passion for this aspect of her career.

Tamara is a Bay Area native and graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford Law School.  Tamara’s passion for equity spills over into her non-work life.  She serves on the board of a local non-profit that provides respite and support services to children and families.  Tamara, along with her adult daughters, host a variety of events for youth and women of color, including empowerment seminars and distribution of essential toiletries and accessories to homeless women.

Laura J. Maechtlen is the National Chair of the Labor and Employment Department at Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Co-Chair of the Firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Team.  Her practice is focused on employment litigation and includes the defense of class, collective and multi-plaintiff actions.  Laura also has experience litigating against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) in systemic actions, both at the early charge stage and in large-scale EEOC pattern-and-practice litigation.  In addition to her litigation practice, Laura also provides day-to-day counseling and advice to clients about the various laws affecting the employment relationship.  

Laura is a national leader on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the legal industry, and has held a variety of leadership positions through which she has advocated for systemic improvement in the legal industry in the areas of diversity and inclusion.  She currently serves as the Chair Emeritus of the Board of Directors for the California Minority Counsel Program, as well as the Executive Committee for Lambda Legal.  She is a previous Latina Commissioner for the Hispanic National Bar Association, President of the National LGBT Bar Association, and Fellow for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD).

Laura speaks and publishes regularly on a variety of employment law and litigation topics, and issues regarding diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, and has been quoted on those topics by the San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Reuters, The Recorder, Vogue, The Daily Journal, the Insurance Journal, CIO.com, Employment Law 360, and others.  She has also served as a contributing editor to multiple editions of The Fair Labor Standards Act (ABA) and The Developing Labor Law (BNA). 

Allison Callaghan is a litigator focusing primarily on employment law. She has experience in complex litigation, including wage-and-hour class and representative actions, and single-plaintiff harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination cases. She has also represented clients in alternative dispute resolution and administrative agency proceedings. 

In addition to litigation, Ms. Callaghan advises and counsels both public and private employers on a broad array of employment matters, including personnel policies and procedures, discipline and termination, reasonable accommodation, and leave and wage and hour issues.

Prior to joining Nossaman, Ms. Callaghan practiced general business litigation and employment litigation at law firms in Sacramento and Los Angeles. As a law student, she clerked for the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. She was the recipient of Witkin Awards for Academic Excellence (awarded to the highest grade in class) for Employment Discrimination, Criminal Procedure, and Legal Research & Writing, and served as Senior Articles Editor for the U.C. Davis Law Review.

Miriam Kim is a partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. Her practice focuses on trade secret litigation, complex business litigation, and internal investigations, particularly for high technology companies.

Miriam has substantial experience protecting companies' trade secrets and defending against trade secret misappropriation claims. She recently represented Amgen in obtaining a favorable settlement, including a multi-year royalty, on the eve of trial resolving a trade secrets dispute involving the oncology drug Neulasta. She has handled litigation and investigations involving a wide variety of other claims, including copyright, antitrust, unfair competition, and false advertising claims. Miriam’s representative clients include Intel Corporation, Applied Materials, LG Electronics, and TIBCO Software.

Miriam is a leader and champion of diversity in the legal community. She is co-chair of the Northern District of California Lawyer Representative Committee to the Ninth Circuit, a past President of the Asian American Bar Association, a member of the Board of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and a former board member of the Justice & Diversity Center. Within her firm, Miriam is a member of the Partner Compensation Committee and former co-chair of the Development and Retention Committee. She lives in Alameda with her husband and two sons.

Helen Tieh is Vice President, Product Legal, at SiriusXM, the leading audio entertainment company in North America.  Helen counsels the Technology organization, which includes the engineering, product and design teams, and manages the IP portfolios and open source program for the company.  Prior to joining SiriusXM, Helen also worked in-house at Looker Data Sciences (acquired by Google), NVIDIA and Oracle.  She has a J.D. from the Duke University School of Law and a B.A. from Stanford University.

Laura is Casetext’s COO, General Counsel, and co-founder. Before Casetext, Laura was a litigator at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, clerked for Judge Paul Engelmayer in the Southern District of New York, and served in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Laura graduated from Yale Law School, where she was managing editor of the Yale Law Journal. In 2017 Laura was named one of the top Women Leaders in Tech Law in California.

Tracy Talbot is a partner in the firm's Commercial Litigation Group, and is chair of the firm's LGBTQ Lawyer's Affinity Group, office leader for Bryan Cave Women, and co-chair of the San Francisco Recruiting Committee.  Tracy is deeply committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession, and continuously looks for opportunities to partner with clients to advance that goal. 

Tracy is a trial lawyer whose litigation practice includes complex litigation, intellectual property litigation, class action defense, and managing a team of lawyers handling large volume litigation.  Tracy has significant experience handling all phases of litigation, including initial case assessment, developing and implementing pre-trial and trial strategy, managing efficient discovery plans, engaging in dispositive motion practice, formulating expert witness strategy, and trying cases to verdict, which Tracy has done numerous times.

Tracy was an integral member of the trial team that received a multi-million dollar jury verdict in a 9-week trial for one of the best known companies in the telecommunications industry, and she was also instrumental in a 3-week jury trial representing a telecommunications company against a shareholder.  Tracy's experience encompasses defending clients against claims for intentional interference, unfair competition, noncompete and trade secret misappropriation, negligence, false advertising, and patent infringement, as well as advising and defending clients regarding claims for violations of federal and state lending laws and regulations, including FCRA, TILA, RESPA, RDCPA, and HOBR.

Tracy strives to partner with her clients to help them achieve their legal business objectives by evaluating strategic settlement options, determining whether it makes sense to try a case on the merits, or developing an innovative fee arrangement.

Tamsen Plume is the executive partner of Holland & Knight's San Francisco office, with 20 years of experience in complex land use and environmental law. She represents project proponents in land use and environmental permitting, compliance, and due diligence matters for complex land use, development and redevelopment projects, including acquisition of public property. Ms. Plume's practice includes all aspects of land use entitlements, including development agreements and other specialty land use contracts, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Planning Law, Subdivision Map Act, State Density Bonus Law and Housing Accountability Act.

Kieran Kieckhefer is a partner in the Litigation practice. Her practice focuses on patent and trade secret litigation in federal district courts. Kieran has experience across a broad spectrum of technologies and has handled cases in fields such as software, consumer electronics, memory systems, networking and cybersecurity.

An experienced trial attorney, Kieran has tried patent, trade secret, breach of employment contract, and Lanham Act claims. In addition to her extensive involvement litigating patent and trade secret cases in courts across the country, she has a breadth of experience before federal appellate courts, including the Ninth Circuit, Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Kieran plays an active role in the support, mentorship, and retention of women in law. In 2012, she had the privilege of serving the City and County of San Francisco as an assistant district attorney.

Shanti Ariker is SVP, General Counsel at Zendesk and has been  practicing for more than 20 years with experience working internationally with high-growth companies and working with board of directors and executive management, managing and building teams and negotiating complex agreements.  Previously Shanti was Deputy General Counsel at Twilio Inc. and also worked at Autodesk and Salesforce, including 3.5 years as General Counsel of Salesforce.org, the non-profit arm of Salesforce. 

Suzette has always enjoyed the art of negotiation and litigation. She has appeared and argued before several state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. She has appeared before administrative agencies, including the San Francisco Board of Appeals, the San Francisco Rent Board, the Oakland Rent Board, and the California Labor Commission.

Suzette joined Bardellini, Straw, Cavin & Bupp LLP (BSCB), a boutique law firm that specialized in real estate transactions and litigation. Her practice evolved to include title/escrow issues, business disputes, contract negotiations, handling adversary proceedings in bankruptcy, Home Owner Association issues, and construction defects. Suzette also has significant appellate experience (9th Circuit) and has successfully argued before the California Court of Appeal (1st District).

Suzette was the only female/minority partner at BSCB. In 2014, Suzette joined Fidelity National Law Group in Walnut Creek as VP/Trial Counsel and later transfered to the business side as VP/Underwriting Counsel. In 2016, she moved to North American Title Company as its VP/Regional Counsel serving the Western Region including California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah

Suzette is District 4 Governor of the California Women's Lawyer's Association (the largest women's bar association statewide) and serves as the Chair of the In House Counsel Network. She is an active member of the In-House Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area and a former Co-Chair, a Board Member at Large of the Contra Costa County Bar Association Women's Section, a member of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association - Silicon Valley, the Filipino Bar Association of Northern California, and CREW SF/East Bay CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women). 

She has been rated AV Preeminent® by her peers, the highest rating given by Martindale-Hubble®, and was selected as an honoree for the 2018 National Women in Law (Collaborative Leadership Category)

Sarah Piepmeier is a partner in the San Francisco office and a leader of Kirkland & Ellis’ Bay Area intellectual property litigation practice. Sarah’s practice focuses primarily on patent litigation, but she also has significant experience in trade secret, copyright, trademark, false advertising, anti-trust, technology-related commercial litigation, and constitutional law. Sarah’s cases have involved a variety of technologies and industries, such as semiconductors, wireless standards, relational databases and data aggregation, online video games, social networking, electronic books, anti-virus and encryption software, hard drives, high-voltage switchgears, and various home appliances. Sarah has also achieved successful results for major clients on cutting-edge legal issues relating to standard essential patents and FRAND, and she has significant experience working with German counsel on patent matters before courts in Germany.

Recently, Sarah was recognized by The Recorder as a 2018 Woman Leader in Tech Law, a recognition given to California-based lawyers who practice in the technology industry. Earlier in 2018, Sarah was named one of the Top Women Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal. In addition, Sarah was honored as a Northern California “Super Lawyer” for Intellectual Property Litigation each year from 2013 through 2015. Previously, from 2010 through 2012, she was named a “Rising Star” in Intellectual Property Litigation, a distinction awarded to less than 2.5% of Northern California lawyers under the age of 40. In 2011, Sarah was named a “Best LGBT Attorney Under 40” in the United States by the National LGBT Bar Association.

Sarah’s clients rely on her fifteen years of experience litigating patent and other IP matters across the United States, including dozens of district court cases and more than ten Section 337 Investigations before the International Trade Commission. Sarah has significant first chair experience and routinely leads teams of lawyers, including joint defense groups, in high profile matters from case inception through successful resolution. An accomplished trial lawyer, Sarah has tried more than ten cases in federal district court and before the International Trade Commission.

Prior to joining Kirkland, Sarah was a core member of the team that obtained a landmark decision invalidating California’s Proposition 8 on the grounds that it violates the United States Constitution. Sarah’s work on this case has been profiled and mentioned in corresponding media coverage, as well as in the documentary and book that trace the litigation. Today, Sarah maintains an active pro bono practice that focuses primarily on civil rights litigation. Prior to law school, Sarah spent several years as a complex database designer.

Sarah is a member of the Firmwide Diversity and Inclusion Committee, the LGBT Subcommittee, and the Pro Bono Management Committee. Sarah is also a member of the Bay Area Recruiting Committee and the Bay Area Associate, Paralegal, and Secretarial Review Committees.

Iris is a Vice President in the Legal Department at Google, LLC where she leads a team of 110+ attorneys and contract managers responsible for supporting global product development and all commercial transactions in North America and EMEA for Google’s advertising, analytics, commerce, payments, search, research, geo, emerging markets and product infrastructure services. Iris regularly advises the company’s executives across Product, Engineering, Sales, Business Development and other functions.  She began her career at Google in 2006 as a commercial attorney supporting the company’s ads business and was also the lead attorney for Google’s legal staff in New York before relocating to the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, CA, in 2011.  She is a member of Google’s executive oversight committee for some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives and is the co-sponsor of the Google Legal Department diversity and inclusion committee.   Before joining Google, Iris was a corporate associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (2001-2004) working on securities, M&A, private equity fund formation and non-profit organization matters.  She then joined Ropes & Gray (2004-2006) where she was a member of the firm’s investment management practice.

Iris is a Vice President on the Board of the Columbia Law School Association.  She is also an advisory committee member for PracticePro, a San Francisco-based legal education startup that provides skills training, career development training, diversity programs and technology with the aim of improving how new lawyers are trained and bringing more diversity to the legal profession.  Iris was also a recipient of The Recorder’s Women Leaders In Tech Law Awards in 2017.

Iris received a BA in 1997 from Yale University and a JD in 2001 from Columbia Law School where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Joseph Solomon Arts Fellow.  She also completed the Advanced Leadership Program for Asian-American Executives at Stanford Business School in 2017.  Outside of work, Iris enjoys running, following interior design blogs and spending time with her husband and three daughters.

An accomplished and confident strategist and litigator, Kate Stimeling doesn’t waste time equivocating, euphemizing or waltzing around. She’s a straight talker who likes to get to the point, although she knows how to navigate her way there using empathy and intelligence. She starts working early in the process, coordinating discovery, vetting experts, identifying resources, and crafting motions that are designed to increase efficiency and minimize risk.

In the boardroom, Kate is committed to developing effective, cutting-edge legal strategies. In the courtroom, she practices the art of putting people at ease and building trust by explaining complex legal concepts in simple, understandable terms. She is equally adept at managing and conducting internal investigations of discrimination and other employment claims.

Kate has experience in the areas of product liability, toxic and mass tort, catastrophic personal injury, juvenile law and employment law. The clients and industries she has represented include chemical manufacturers, food distribution companies, transportation and consumer product and equipment manufacturers. She has served as outside counsel for a national food distribution company in 13 jurisdictions and has handled cases involving food poisoning, personal injury, breach of contract claims and trucking-related litigation.

Effective, creative, and equally adept at defending employers ranging from mom-and-pop sole proprietors to public entity employers and Fortune 100 companies. Tsao resolves disputes involving all forms of discrimination and harassment, wrongful termination, unfair competition and employment-related tort claims. 

She also has two decades of experience successfully defending management in wage and hour class actions and PAGA representative actions, and remains in the forefront of this evolving area by advancing new legal theories.  Tsao is one of a few California attorneys who has taken this type of complex case all the way to trial and through various levels of appeals.  Tsao is on the trial and appellate team that secured the seminal California Supreme Court decision in Duran v. U.S. Bank, 59 Cal.4th 1 (2014), which helped shape class certification and trial management principles in exemption cases, particularly in the areas of statistical sampling and representative testimony.  Tsao cemented that victory when she again defeated class certification after the case was remanded to the trial court, which was affirmed on appeal in a decision that discussed the weaknesses and unreliability of survey methodology in these types of exemption cases, Duran v. U.S. Bank, 19 Cal.App.5th 630 (2018). 

Tsao successfully represents employers before administrative agencies, California state and federal courts, at both the trial and appellate levels, and in arbitrations.  She aggressively pursues early resolution on favorable terms whenever possible, whether through ADR or by dispositive motions, and is known for her tough negotiation skills.  She regularly provides training and advice to clients in the areas of risk management and litigation avoidance, keeping them informed of changing laws and best practices in the challenging California legal climate.

As Co-Chair of CDF’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee, Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association’s Solo & Small Firm Committee and a member of the California Minority Counsel Program, Alison L. Tsao strives to foster a workplace and environment of diversity and inclusion, where diverse attorneys are recruited and promoted within the firm.  She is instrumental in establishing a mentorship program for diverse attorneys at the firm and looks for opportunities to engage clients in a dialogue about shared goals in promoting diversity in the legal profession.

Dr. Astrid Becker-Celik is Associate General Counsel of Glu Mobile Inc., a developer and publisher of mobile games.  Astrid has experience with a broad range of legal, business and strategic issues.  Being admitted in California, New York and Germany (inactive), Astrid’s practice is multijurisdictional and multinational.  Astrid is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPP/A and CIPP/C), a Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM).

At Glu, Astrid is the legal point of contact for the worldwide Finance, Tax, Stock Administration, Marketing, Information Technology, and Information Security teams.  She is also responsible for privacy, corporate compliance, SEC reporting and Glu’s worldwide legal entity structure. 

Before joining Glu, Astrid was Associate General Counsel for Quantum Corporation, a data storage company, for 15 years and prior to that worked for two US-based and one German-based multinational law firm.  She studied in three different countries, and worked in Belgium, France, Germany and Ecuador before coming to the US.

Priya Sanger is Deputy Legal Counsel at Patreon, a SaaS payments platform company helping to fund the creative class. They provide an online membership payments platform for Artists and Creators to engage with their supporters, and get paid easily and predictably without ads. Previously she spent 5 years at Google as a product and payments counsel, providing consumer and business strategic advice and leading product internationalization in Ads & Commerce. Before Google, Priya worked at Wells Fargo where she worked in different attorney roles: as a product and strategy lawyer, M&A lawyer, privacy lawyer, regulatory & compliance lawyer, and commercial lawyer. She also served as President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, which represents 8000 lawyer members in San Francisco and provides justice for the under-served.

Nancy Chung Allred is Senior Policy Counsel at Airbnb, Inc., focusing on regulatory, policy, and government affairs for a fast-growing startup disrupting traditional hospitality models. Nancy has a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She has over 12 years of experience as an attorney, including stints at Uber Technologies, Inc., Southern California Edison Company, and Baker McKenzie LLP. Nancy is a longtime San Franciscan, with three young children who don’t care much about regulatory reform but do like that their mom’s workplace has a ball pit. 

In her thirteen years at White & Case, Heather has been a leader in the firm's Global Competition and Antitrust practice group, an award-winning practice that has been named Competition Group of the Year for the past six years by Law360. She concentrates on complex commercial litigation and counseling in the areas of antitrust, intellectual property and class actions and has extensive trial experience. Heather was recognized in 2017 and 2018 by Benchmark Litigation's "Under 40 Hotlist."

Her work often includes defending international companies in grand jury investigations, civil and criminal investigations and multiple parallel class action, opt-out and State AG lawsuits. Outside of her trial work, Heather represents clients in connection with investigations before government regulatory bodies, including the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, and regularly counsels clients regarding antitrust regulatory hurdles in their mergers and acquisitions.

Heather has also done extensive pro bono work for women of domestic violence in their divorce and child custody proceedings, and for children seeking asylum in the US after fleeing violence in their home country. She serves as the Pro Bono Chair and Equal Employment Opportunity Officer in the Silicon Valley office, and is on the firm’s Global Women's Initiative Committee and the firm's Global Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Core Team. Heather also co-chairs the Next Gen Committee for ChIPs, a 501c3 organization with over 3,000 members that advances and connects women in technology, law and policy.

Anne M. Cappella is a partner in Weil’s Silicon Valley office, where she focuses on patent counseling and litigation involving complex and cutting-edge technologies.

Ms. Cappella has a uniquely diverse intellectual property counseling practice, which includes advising clients on pre-litigation patent strategies, technical aspects of patent licensing arrangements, patent acquisitions, and intellectual property due diligence for M&A transactions.

Clients also call on Ms. Cappella to oversee and lead the most technical aspects of patent litigations, including performing technical analysis to ensure solid claim construction, infringement, and validity arguments; overseeing technical experts and interacting with company engineers; and managing post-grant strategy and proceedings. Ms. Cappella has extensive experience representing clients in high-stakes multi-patent and multi-district litigations, as well as trade secret actions. She litigates in federal courts and arbitration proceedings, and has particularly deep experience before the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Ms. Cappella uses her strong technical background, including a B.S. in electrical engineering with minors in computer science and mathematics and prior work experience as an engineer and consultant for IBM, to advise clients on a diverse range of technology. She has represented smartphone manufacturers and wireless carriers in proceedings involving data encoding, memory, multi-touch, WiFi, GPS, data synchronization, 3G/LTE cellular data modulation, and digital camera technologies. She also has represented other technology-focused clients in proceedings involving wireless, integrated circuit design, memory, Ethernet and DSL technology, and semiconductor processing and packaging. Some of Ms. Cappella’s representative clients include leading smartphone manufacturers, Microsoft, Intel, Amkor, and T-Mobile, among others.

Ms. Cappella is widely regarded as a leader in the field. In 2014 and 2017, Ms. Cappella was named to the Daily Journal’s list of the Top Women Lawyers in California. The publication, which recognizes the 100 most accomplished women lawyers in the state, noted that “Cappella uses her background as an electrical engineer and a love for complicated technology to help her clients fend off patent infringement claims.” Since 2016 Ms. Cappella has been recognized as a recommended lawyer for patent litigation by Legal 500. She also has been included in The Recorder’s list of the top Women Leaders in Law and was named a “2016 Women of Influence” by the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Ms. Cappella is actively involved in a number of initiatives aimed at bettering the careers of women lawyers. She is a member of the Firm’s global Women@Weil leadership board, a Firm affinity group that focuses on supporting women lawyers. Ms. Cappella also is a formal mentor to several senior women associates, and a regular participant in women law student and engineer mentoring programs.

Karol K. Denniston, a bankruptcy and restructuring lawyer for more than 30 years, has extensive experience representing debtors, creditors, bondholders and other parties in a wide variety of litigated bankruptcy cases and out of court transactions. Karol has a strong interest in mediation and has been a mediator since 1992. She has worked with many sectors, including real estate, intellectual property, regulated industries including banks, infrastructure, utilities, oil and gas, gaming and nonprofits.

Karol has been working in the distress municipal sector since 2009 and routinely represents cities, special districts, indenture trustees, bondholders, taxpayers and monoline insurers in a variety of municipal restructuring engagements throughout the US. She has represented clients in municipal insolvency proceedings with a focus on negotiating resolutions, including in Puerto Rico PROMESA restructurings for the Government Development Bank and COFINA.

Jacqueline (“Jaci”) Lee represents America’s largest restaurant franchisee in a wide range of commercial, real estate, and tort disputes for over 1200 restaurants nationwide.  She is an experienced trial lawyer who has managed all aspects of litigation and has played a lead role in several jury and bench trials, as well as arbitration.  Jaci has written and spoken extensively on litigation strategy, IP damages, and diversity in the legal profession, and her contributions have been recognized by a number of legal publications, including The Legal 500 United States and Northern California Super Lawyers.  In 2015, Jaci was named to Silicon Valley Business Journal’s 2015 “Women of Influence” list.  Prior to joining Flynn Restaurant Group in 2018, Jaci was a partner in Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office.

Alexandra Ross is the founder of The Privacy Guru and Director, Global Privacy and Data Security Counsel at Autodesk, Inc., a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Previously she was Senior Counsel at Paragon Legal and Associate General Counsel for Wal-Mart Stores. She is a certified information privacy professional (CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPM, CIPT and FIP) and practices in San Francisco, California. She holds a law degree from Hastings College of Law and a B.S. in theater from Northwestern University.

Alexandra launched The Privacy Guru blog in January of 2014 to facilitate a safe, engaging space for people of all walks of life to learn about privacy and security.  Her mission is to demystify complex privacy issues and help us make mindful privacy choices that align with our personal values.  Her ebook Privacy for Humans (available on Amazon and iTunes) is a guide for technology lovers who want to embrace the future with enhanced awareness of data privacy and security issues.

Ms. Sumita Ray has been the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Calithera Biosciences, Inc. since October 3, 2017. Ms. Ray has a breadth of knowledge in FDA regulatory law, global health care law and compliance, brand support, product launches, collaborations and alliances. Ms. Ray served as the Chief Compliance Officer, Head of Healthcare and Regulatory Law and Associate General Counsel of Healthcare Law at Pharmacyclics LLC (alternate name, Pharmacyclics Inc.), where she supported the Pharmacyclics through the global approval and launch of Imbruvica in multiple indications Ms. Ray joined Pharmacyclics in April 2013. She has more than 17 years of legal, regulatory and compliance experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Ms. Ray’s legal and compliance practice involves collaboration with the clinical development, medical affairs and commercial business units, among others, on strategies to meet business goals in an ethical, legally sound and compliant manner. Ms. Ray started her career as a pharmaceutical and products liability litigator at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker and Rhoads LLP. She was at Elan Pharmaceuticals in San Francisco, where she was a member of the company’s Legal Leadership Team and Head of the BioNeurology and Regulatory Law Group , leading and managing a team of lawyers and paralegals in global support of Elan’s pipeline and marketed products. In 2010, Ms. Ray was significantly involved in the negotiation and settlement of Elan’s Corporate Integrity Agreement with the Office of Inspector General and the subsequent drafting, implementing and training of the global business on key policies and procedures related to a Global Compliance program. Prior to joining Elan, Ms. Ray was in the legal department as Corporate Counsel of AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals for 2.5 years, followed by Genentech for 3 years, where Ms. Ray was the lead Legal Counsel for each respective company’s blockbuster drug product in primary care and oncology and engaged in several FDA label negotiations, approvals and subsequent product launches. Prior to moving in-house, Ms. Ray spent 5 years as a pharmaceutical and products liability litigator at a major Philadelphia-based law firm, where she spent a significant amount of time on the FEN-PHEN products liability case, among other historic pharmaceutical cases. Ms. Ray holds a Juris Doctor from Temple University Law School and a bachelor of science in microbiology from the University of Arizona. She is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California.

Marina Gracias is General Counsel/Corporate Secretary at Varo Money. Varo[s mission is to help people improve their financial lives by providing them with a suite of mobile app based financial tools. Prior to joining Varo, Marina was a Managing Director in Financial Services at Accenture and prior to that the Head of Global Sourcing at Visa. Marina also practised corporate law both in house and at a prominent San Francisco law firm. Marina also serves as an Advisory Board member for Bizworld which is educating our future entrepreneurs.

Meryl Macklin is a trial lawyer with over 30 years of experience trying and resolving complex business disputes. Ms. Macklin has served as lead trial counsel for clients ranging from major corporations to small startups in dozens of high-exposure cases in state and federal courts around the country, and regularly practices in both Northern and Southern California. Her trial experience has enabled her to develop targeted litigation strategies even when handling cases likely to settle, avoiding unnecessary and costly motion and discovery practice where possible. Her practice focuses not only on defending companies in litigation but also on counseling clients on ways to quickly resolve disputes. She is a strong team leader, with proven success partnering with clients and other professionals to accomplish results.

She previously served as the Chair of the Litigation Department of legacy firm HRO and a member of legacy firm HRO’s Executive Committee. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Macklin was a partner at law firms in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.

Ms. Macklin is a member of the Northern District of California Mediation Panel and serves as mediator for all types of commercial disputes. She attended mediation training at the Harvard Negotiation Project. 

Ashley Crawford represents clients in consumer and securities class actions, enforcement actions, false claims litigation, and a broad range of insurance and other business disputes. Her clients include financial services providers; private equity and hedge funds; and other health, energy and entertainment companies.

Ashley brings a strong industry background to her representations, having served as in-house counsel for an insurance company, where she managed bad-faith and corporate litigation and regularly advised claims personnel in various lines of business.

In addition to her substantial trial and arbitration experience, Ashley brings additional value to her clients through her focus on implementing effective project management, innovative discovery methods and other cost efficiencies in sprawling, complex litigations. 

April currently is a VP and Associate General Counsel at Salesforce. She is a member of the Legal and Corporate Affairs (LCA) leadership team. She heads the Office of Ethics & Integrity, a global business unit reporting to the LCA President and General Counsel. She provides the strategic vision for the global ethics and integrity program and oversees legal compliance training, policy development, and related investigations. She has direct reports in EMEA, APAC, LACA and US public sector, in addition to HQ. She is a member of the Compliance and Risk Committee, a cross-functional group of senior business leaders at Salesforce that is the company's risk assessment body.

Laurie Edelstein is a trial and appellate lawyer dedicated to partnering with her clients to tackle and solve difficult problems and known for her mastery of the facts and the law. She represents corporations and individuals in complex business disputes, energy matters, antitrust cases, and white-collar matters. She also advises companies on compliance issues and policies and procedures.  Laurie is passionate about her work and combines creativity, sound judgment, and fierce advocacy to achieve results for her clients consistent with their business objectives and regulatory obligations. She uses targeted discovery and strategic motion practice to obtain successful outcomes before trial. But when necessary, Laurie is prepared to take a case to trial. Laurie is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School.

Julie Taylor is a shareholder with Keesal, Young & Logan in San Francisco, where she practices employment litigation and counseling and is significantly involved in the Firm’s nationally recognized technology initiatives. Julie graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1991, and is licensed in both California and Washington. She has been recognized by Law & Politics Magazine as one of Northern California’s “Super Lawyers” every year since 2006, and in 2016 was named one of California’s top labor and employment lawyers by the Daily Journal. Julie served on the Board of the California Bar Foundation from 2012-2018, and, in January 2015, began a two-year term as President of the Board. Under Julie’s leadership the Foundation became California’s largest source of statewide law school diversity scholarships and pipeline program grants, and instituted a first of its kind postgraduate fellowship placing diverse lawyers in the most underserved parts of the state.

Tanya Willacy currently serves as the Vice President and General Counsel of ENGIE Storage Services NA LLC, which the U.S. battery storage division of ENGIE. ENGIE is the world’s largest independent power producer with operations in 70 countries employing 150,000 people, including 1,000 researchers in 11 R&D centers. ENGIE Storage provides intelligent battery storage solutions to commercial and industrial customers and small utilities. In her current role, Tanya also juggles being the Chief Ethics Officer and Data Privacy Officer for ENGIE Storage and lead for her company’s Corporate Sustainability and Social Responsibility efforts. Prior to joining ENGIE, Tanya served as the Head of Legal for Sun Edison’s North America Commercial and Industrial Group. SunEdison, which at the time was the world’s largest solar developer, filed for bankruptcy in 2016, just fifteen months after Tanya joined the company. Tanya believes the bankruptcy provided the best learning experience of her career. Tanya worked at Pacific Gas and Electric Company and its affiliate the PG&E National Energy Group for fifteen years before joining SunEdison. While at PG&E she focused on developing PG&E’s renewable energy platform. Tanya began her legal career at Fried Frank in Washington, DC after a one-year clerkship in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. Tanya attended New York University School of Law and Stanford University.

Managing partner of Hunton Andrew Kurth’s San Francisco office and leader of its California environmental practice, Shannon has worked to promote and expand the role of women attorneys in her office and throughout the firm, representing major companies and trade associations.  In her practice, Shannon represents oil and gas companies, manufacturers, and trade associations on climate change, air quality, and emergency response. She leads a major petroleum company in defense of climate change nuisance suits filed by several municipalities and counties against industrial companies in multiple jurisdictions. She also helps companies obtain permits, advises on compliance, and defends enforcement actions. Her prior chemical engineering experience in the oil and gas industry affords her practical insight into the development of regulations and for advising on environmental, health, and safety compliance and enforcement issues. Shannon leads the defense of Clean Air Act enforcement by EPA against clients including chemical and petroleum companies, manufacturers, and the auto racing industry.

With over 20 years of experience in commercial litigation, Ann Marie has successfully resolved the most difficult cases facing her clients. She has an established track record in class action consumer claims litigation, focusing on data security, false advertising and unfair competition class actions. Her cross-disciplinary practice encompasses complex commercial transactions, litigation of distribution agreements, and toxic tort/environmental claims. In connection with counseling clients to manage downstream litigation risk, Ann Marie has conducted internal investigations and provided related counseling to the law departments of technology companies, financial institutions and consumer product manufacturers focused on compliance, best practices and enhanced integration with the stakeholder business units.

Ann Marie is the managing partner of the Los Angeles office and co-head of the firm’s commercial litigation practice. Ann Marie’s practice is cross-disciplinary and includes significant business and class action consumer claims litigation experience in relation to data breach, consumer related labeling claims, as well as environmental, CERCLA and toxic tort multi-party litigation. In a highly-publicized and currently ongoing matter, Ann Marie currently serves as the lead attorney defending an internet service provider in more than 40 related consumer class action lawsuits across several districts in state and federal court regarding a significant data breach. The breach has been deemed the largest data breach in history.

In connection with her litigation practice, Ann Marie routinely counsels clients on matters involving internal investigations and monitoring compliance of corporate legal departments, limiting litigation risk by auditing compliance to ensure a robust and transparent program. As part of her aggregate claims practice, Ann Marie has successfully decertified a nationwide products class action, and defeated class certification in multiple products, toxic tort, unfair competition and unfair trade practice cases. Ann Marie has tried toxic tort, commercial and products cases in state and federal courts throughout California. Ann Marie is admitted to practice before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Districts of California.

A highly-experienced litigator, Sarah focuses her practice on the defense of discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims, as well as claims relating to medical leave issues. In addition, Sarah litigates actions relating to wage and hour issues, unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets. Her practice also includes a robust component of counseling, training and policy development; she advises employers on the full range of employment law compliance topics. Sarah is an Adjunct Professor at Tulane Law School in the Masters of Jurisprudence in Labor and Employment Law program. The program is an online executive masters degree program aimed at human resource professionals and business owners. Sarah designed, created, and teaches a semester-long requisite course on employee medical leaves of absence. She is delighted to teach in this innovative program offered by her alma mater. Sarah especially enjoys explaining the law and the legal process to non-lawyers. Her experience has been that conflicts in the workplace, and even litigation, can produce positive change within companies if the lawyer handling the matter takes care to listen, adapt to change, and keep the client’s business objectives at the forefront of the strategy at all times. 

Tiffany Renee Thomas currently holds the position of Counsel – Employment and Corporate Responsibility at Visa. Prior to joining Visa, Tiffany was a partner in the San Francisco office of Reed Smith LLP where she specialized in the defense and counseling of employers in all aspects of employment law. She received her J.D. from University of California, Berkeley - School of Law.

An experienced labor and employment attorney, Jasmine defends businesses in all aspects of employment law matters and serves as the regional practice lead for the firm’s Labor & Employment Department in the San Francisco office. She manages a broad range of litigation involving discrimination, harassment, wage and hour, failure to accommodate, leave denial, Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and other claims before federal and state courts and administrative agencies. Committed to helping employers comply with employment laws, Jasmine also provides advice and counsel to employers on how to prevent litigation and develop effective employment policies and practices.A certified, trauma-informed investigator, Jasmine has experience conducting Title IX and workplace investigations.Prior to joining Fox Rothschild, Jasmine was partner and co-chair of the Diversity Education Initiative at a national employment law firm. Before that, Jasmine worked as a labor and employment associate at national, regional and boutique law firms. Jasmine also previously worked as in-house employment counsel for a technology company.

Jasbir Khalsa is a product attorney that provides cross-functional support to certain start ups that have been acquired by Microsoft in Silicon Valley.  Jasbir touches a variety of issues ranging from ethical use of data for artificial intelligence and machine learning, data protection, privacy, IP rights, IP protection, data security, US and international consumer protection laws, marketing, commercial and regulatory compliance.  Jasbir is licensed to practice law in England & Wales, New York and California.  She has an LLM from Golden Gate University and a LLB from Brunel University in London.

Nancy is an experienced corporate attorney with over ten years working at reputable and iconic consumer products companies and approximately eight years at multi-billion dollar financial services firms.

In her current position as Associate General Counsel at Jelly Belly Candy Company, she is responsible for handling and advising on a wide range of legal topics.  They include reviewing and negotiating contracts, corporate governance, insurance, real estate, finance, global subsidiary management, compliance, insurance, and general corporate matters.  In addition, she has successfully streamlined processes and procedures to help the company become more efficient and effective.  Nancy supports and advises operations, human resources, finance, retail stores as well as other business units.  Prior to Jelly Belly Candy Company, she was Corporate Counsel at Big Heart Pet Brands (formerly Del Monte Corporation) and Director of Compliance at AXA Financial.

McGuireWoods partner Carolee Hoover represents financial institutions in single plaintiff, class action, and multidistrict consumer finance litigation nationwide in matters relating to automobile and mortgage loans, deposit accounts, and related servicing. She defends alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, RICO, the Bank Holding Company Act, and state UDAP statutes. Additionally, Carolee handles complex commercial litigation and antitrust price-fixing matters as well.

Navigating and complying with the technical and complicated employment laws in California is downright challenging. Rhonda helps employers find cost-effective solutions to day-to-day employment problems to reduce the risk of litigation.

Sometimes, however, litigation is unavoidable. In those circumstances, Rhonda is an aggressive litigator who will help clients make an early assessment of the risks and exposure in the case to find the best possible resolution ranging from early settlement to, if necessary, trial.

Rhonda specializes in employment litigation, advice and counseling, and representing employers in a wide variety of issues arising within the employer/employee relationship. Rhonda counsels employers on internal harassment and discrimination investigations and presents on-site seminars for clients on sexual harassment, disability accommodation, medical leaves, wage and hour compliance, and related issues. Rhonda also has experience litigating employment claims ( including class actions).

Rhonda is very active in a number of professional associations. She is currently a member of the American Bar Association, Labor and Employment Law Section, and the Business Law Section. She is also a member of the Bar Association of San Francisco and a former member of the Judicial Evaluation Committee. She has been a panelist at a number of seminars and programs organized by such associations as the Continuing Education of the Bar, Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California and Nevada, Minority Corporate Counsel Association and the American Bar Association.

Rhonda is actively involved in the community and has served on a variety of non-profit boards, including, Equal Rights Advocates, Julia Morgan School for Girls, San Francisco Girls Chorus and East Bay Rowing Club.

Rhonda has been voted Super Lawyer 2009-2017 in the area of Employment & Labor; Rated AV Preeminent 1997 – 2017 and selected for an edition of Martindale-Hubbell® Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers,™ 2013-2017.