Mountain View, CA (April 15, 2016)– Fenwick & West is pleased to announce that the Silicon Valley Business Journal has honored partners Cynthia Hess and Antonia Sequeira on its 2016 Silicon Valley Women of Influence list. The list recognizes women in business who "have blazed trails in education, energy, finance, law, and of course, this being Silicon Valley, tech,” according to the Journal.
“Cindy Hess represents and advises some of the world’s most-established companies and the valley’s hottest new names,” the Journal wrote. As co-chair of Fenwick’s startup and venture capital group, Hess leads a team of about 65 lawyers that represents more than 500 venture-backed emerging companies.
Companies look to Hess’s strong business and legal experience for their corporate transactional matters, from formation and venture capital financing to mergers, acquisitions and public offerings.
“My advice is to become deeply knowledgeable about the area in which you are trying to succeed,” Hess told the Journal when asked to share advice for others. “In technology law, that means developing a deep understanding of the underlying technologies in the current market and those on the horizon.”
The Journal cited her work for companies at all stages of growth, from helping Lending Club with fundraising to representing GoPro and Fitbit in their IPOs. Hess also advises Cisco Systems and American Express on strategic investment transactions and serves as a day-to-day adviser to GoPro, Fitbit, LendingClub, Nextdoor, Zoosk and other technology innovators. In addition, she works closely with Fenwick’s Israel practice and represents a number of Israeli clients.
The Journal also honored patent partner Antonia Sequeira, who focuses her practice on patent prosecution, counseling, analysis and litigation for medical device and digital health/health IT companies.
The publication highlighted Sequeira’s years in medicine that laid the foundation for excellence in her current work. “Antonia Sequeira’s path to law began in the medical field,” including various work in the medical world before going to law school. She also served as a researcher on the Drosophila Genome Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “That early focus on healthcare became central to her work as a successful attorney,” theJournal noted.
Sequeira’s clients include large corporations and small startup companies, and she advises them on how to protect their inventions, from medical devices and digital health apps to social networking innovations. She also has firsthand experience of her own as a founder of startup companies, including one in the biomedical space.
In addition to her daily work for clients innovating in the healthcare and software space, Sequeira devotes significant time to pro bono efforts. She volunteers regularly with the Share the Cost Healthcare Clinics, helping low-income and disabled individuals recover their Medi-Cal insurance. She has also worked with Tax Aid, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, California Lawyer’s for the Arts Inventor’s Assistance Program, and Verified Voting/Election Protection, among a variety of other programs providing essential pro bono legal help. Sequeira also serves on the board of wogrammer, a nonprofit company that showcases the cutting-edge work of accomplished women engineers.
Both Sequeira and Hess have received previous recognition for their work and leadership. This year, The Recorder named Hess one of the top 10 most trusted corporate counselors on its Trusted Advisors list. In 2015, The Recorder also named her to its Women Leaders in Tech Law list for the third straight year. Hess is also recognized by both Best Lawyers and The Legal 500, which noted that she’s “well reputed with a range of prominent clients” including Lending Club, Fitbit and GoPro. Last year,The Legal 500 also recognized Sequeira for excellence in patent prosecution work.
Hess and Sequeira’s full Women of Influence profiles are available through the Silicon Valley Business Journal website (subscription required).
About Fenwick & West
Fenwick & West provides comprehensive legal services to ground-breaking technology and life sciences companies – at every stage of their lifecycle – and the investors that partner with them. We craft innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions on issues ranging from venture capital, public offerings, joint ventures, M&A and strategic relationships, to intellectual property, litigation and dispute resolution, taxation, antitrust, and employment and labor law. For more than four decades, Fenwick has helped some of the world's most recognized companies become and remain market leaders. For more information, please visit fenwick.com.