Olabisi Akinola

Born and raised in West Africa, Bisi is a distinguished international technology and corporate lawyer with extensive experience advising some of the world’s most innovative and influential companies. She earned her law degree from University College London, graduating Magna Cum Laude as a Bentham Scholar, and began her legal career at Burness Paull, one of Scotland’s leading law firms. She subsequently worked with a London government agency focused on environmental protection before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007, where she joined the prestigious Silicon Valley firm of Fenwick & West.

At Fenwick, Bisi advised blue-chip technology companies including Cisco, Symantec, HP, Pinterest, SuccessFactors, and Facebook, with a practice focused on venture capital, securities, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate transactions. She later transitioned in-house, building an impressive legal leadership career across Schlumberger, Zazzle, Zynga, Box and LinkedIn.

Since 2021, has served as Senior Legal Director at Meta, leading the Messenger and AI Legal teams. Bisi serves on the board of Paystack, a wholly owned subsidiary of Stripe.

Throughout her career, Bisi has operated at the intersection of technology, business, innovation, and law, advising on business development, technology transactions, content licensing, intellectual property, sales and marketing, and complex corporate and commercial matters. Her unique combination of international perspective, Silicon Valley experience, and deep technology-sector expertise positions her as a highly accomplished legal and business leader.