Dani Fontanesi | Attorney | CIPP/E
Prior to founding Fontanesi Legal, Dani Fontanesi led the in-house legal team of an Andreessen Horowitz backed tech company in San Francisco. Prior to that, she served as Associate General Counsel of a multinational publicly traded renewable energy company. Dani began her career in the M&A / Capital Markets team of a top tier law firm.
Dani acts as external counsel to a wide range of companies, with a focus on B2B contract negotiations and data protection and privacy. Her clients are backed by some of the top VCs in the world — the same ones that launched Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Instacart, Google, Apple, OfferUp, Robinhood, LinkedIn, Stripe, Oracle, Okta, WhatsApp, DoorDash, Instacart, Airbnb, Lyft, Pinterest, and Carta. Dani views each of her clients as a partner, and she helps them grow and scale in a way that’s best for their unique circumstances.
Community: Dani is actively involved in her community, dedicating her time, money, and voice to cancer research and patient advocacy. Dani has served on the Board of Trustees for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Southern California & Hawaii Chapter, and has helped raise over $1 million for organizations like Moores Cancer Center and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She also donates her time to organizations like the Act Now Coalition, a non-profit founded by former Google executives and backed by the Schmidt Foundation that builds innovative and user-friendly data products to address today's urgent problems.
Education: Dani received her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Riverside, and her Juris Doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was the recipient of the Scholar in Law Award, a $90,000 merit-based scholarship. She completed a semester of law school at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon where she studied European and international laws as part of an LL.M. programme. She is a Certified International Privacy Professional in European data protection laws (CIPP/E) and is admitted to the State Bar of California. Dani was named a 2020 Business Woman of the Year by the San Diego Business Journal for her work helping startups grow, scale, and thrive.
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