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Advisory Board
Antonio Alvarez
Crypto.com
Antonio is the Chief Compliance Officer at Crypto.com, where he leads a global team designing and scaling the company’s regulatory compliance program in the rapidly evolving digital assets industry. With nearly two decades of experience in payments and fintech, Antonio has built and led compliance programs for traditional, electronic, and crypto-based business models across North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
Before joining Crypto.com, Antonio held senior compliance leadership roles at Coinbase, Yapstone, Western Union, Visa, and American Express. A member of ACAMS and ACCESS Singapore, Antonio brings deep expertise in global financial regulation and the intersection of technology, innovation, and compliance to the Advisory Board of the USF School of Law’s Center for Law, Tech & Social Good.
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Mary Katherine Ashmore
Counsel, Netflix
Mary Katherine Ashmore serves as Counsel at Netflix, where she oversees all legal aspects of Netflix Experiences, including the upcoming Netflix Houses in Dallas, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas, the Netflix Bites Restaurant at the MGM Casino, and Licensed Experiences around the world. Prior to joining Netflix, Mary Katherine was an Associate at Raymond Legal, where she specialized in production legal for unscripted television and documentaries.
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Emilie Lavirotte
Senior Advisor, Intellectual Property at SEPHORA
Emilie Lavirotte is Senior Advisor of Intellectual Property at Sephora. Ms. Lavirotte coordinates the IP strategy for Sephora in North and Latin America. After working at Sephora in France with the IP team, she joined Sephora USA Inc. legal team several years ago. She has 17+ years of experience working in house in France and in the U.S.
Ms. Lavirotte holds a master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from Grenoble University School of Law (France).
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Johan Cho
Microsoft
As Assistant General Counsel in Microsoft's Office of Responsible AI (ORA), Johan advises on AI strategy and compliance, translating complex risks and regulations into governance frameworks that enable trusted innovation. He partners across the company to shape regulatory implementation and external advocacy, including global AI and privacy laws. Prior to ORA, he advised senior leadership across Microsoft's Cloud+AI, CoreAI, and AI Platform engineering groups on multimodal and generative AI throughout the AI lifecycle. Earlier in his career, Johan was the only lawyer at a cloud services startup, where he built out its legal and compliance team from the ground up.
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Dyann Heward-Mills
CEO - HewardMills
Dyann is a UK-qualified barrister of Ghanaian heritage, with over 25 years of expertise in data protection and cybersecurity. She is the founder and CEO of HewardMills, a B Corp certified global data protection, cyber and AI compliance business. Appointed ethics expert for the European Commission in research and innovation, Dyann is a sought-after speaker at industry panels, conferences, and media events. She is also a passionate advocate for social change and using business as a force for good. Dyann co-founded Protect Black Women, a grassroots organisation dedicated to amplifying the voices, rights, and well-being of Black women and girls. Dyann champions several initiatives that support inclusion and drive HewardMills’ impactful Corporate Social Responsibility agenda. Beyond her accomplished legal career, Dyann is a qualified psychotherapeutic counsellor, Board Advisor and golf enthusiast.
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Michael Hewitt
Sideman & Bancroft LLP
Michael Hewitt is a Partner at Sideman & Bancroft, where he leads the Blockchain and Digital Assets Practice Group and is a member of the firm’s Brand Integrity and Innovation, Litigation and Appeals, and Intellectual Property groups. He specializes in helping clients protect their brand portfolios through creative and effective enforcement strategies, working with clients of all sizes from startups to the largest tech companies in the world.
Michael is active in the USF and SF IP communities, serving as the Co-Chair of the Bar Association of San Francisco, IP and Internet Law Barristers Section, as a member of the Board of Governors for the USF School of Law, and as an advisory board member for the Center for Law, Tech, and Social Good.
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Liza Levitt
Intuit
Liza Emin Levitt serves as Vice President, Deputy General Counsel of Intuit Inc. She is responsible for the legal and compliance strategy for Intuit’s Platforms and Emerging Technology, supporting Intuit’s mission of powering prosperity around the world. She also leads Intuit's Responsible AI governance program in close partnership with Intuit’s technology leaders.
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Tom Meister
Grizzly Peak Ventures
Tom Meister is an entrepreneur, investor and attorney whose work is grounded at the intersection of capital markets and financial technology. After starting his career as a debt finance attorney at Wilson Sonsini and Goodwin Procter, he moved into executive leadership roles at three venture-backed online lenders -- Funding Circle, NepFin and Zilch -- two of which exited, and two of which achieved "unicorn" status.
Today, Tom leads a venture studio, Grizzly Peak Ventures, which incubates payments, specialty finance, fintech and blockchain projects, and a credit firm, Credit Pacifica Asset Management, which focuses on funding specialty finance companies in frontier markets. Outside of his ongoing work in financial technology and credit, he is a co-founding partner of Brightpoint Law, LLP, a law firm that specializes in financial services, financial technology and blockchain.
Tom received his BA, cum laude, from Columbia and his law degree from Berkeley.
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Ryan David Williams
Partner, Ashbury Legal
Ryan David Williams is the founding partner of Ashbury Legal and is individually ranked by Chambers and Partners in USA, FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies. Since founding Ashbury in 2016, when few lawyers would touch cryptocurrency, he has guided more than 250 projects through unchartered waters, making him one of the most prominent lawyers for frontier technology.
Ryan counsels early-stage startups, established technology companies and venture capital investors. His clients include small startups building the tech of tomorrow along with industry leaders like Animoca Brands, Ondo Finance, Chainlink Labs, Stellar Development Foundation, and Doodles.
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Candace Kelly
Chief Legal & Policy Officer at Stellar Development Foundation (SDF)
Candace Kelly serves as Chief Legal & Policy Officer at Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), where she leads the team responsible for global legal affairs and policy initiatives that connect the public and private worlds of financial infrastructure. Before joining SDF, she held senior roles at Uber, advising on regulatory, privacy, safety and consumer protection matters, and served for 17 years at the U.S. Department of Justice as a federal prosecutor, including as counsel to the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
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Jeff Sears
Partner, First Trax Advisors
Jeff is an AI and Cloud technology investor and advisor with over three decades of experience leading high-growth ventures at the intersection of technology and market strategy. As a Partner at First Trax Advisors, he provides strategic counsel to healthcare technology startups, specializing in the implementation of AI initiatives and go-to-market leadership.
A 1986 graduate of USF School of Law, Jeff began his career as a corporate attorney in San Francisco before transitioning into executive leadership roles within the burgeoning AI and Cloud sector. He has a proven track record of scaling sales and marketing operations for venture-backed startups, resulting in several successful exits. Throughout his career, Jeff has managed global alliances and channel partnerships with tech industry leaders at Fujitsu, NTT Data, and Hexaware. In addition to his advisory work, Jeff also serves as a mentor at the ‘Startup Westport’ incubator, where he supports the next generation of entrepreneurs launching AI applications.