Bio

The Senior and Founding Partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Larry Sonsini has gained international recognition for his expertise in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. He has been instrumental in many of the financings, IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, and other key transactions of Silicon Valley and beyond. In addition to his duties at the firm, which included serving as chief executive officer as well as chairman for more than 35 years, Larry was chairman of the New York Stock Exchange's Commission on Corporate Governance, which was formed in 2009 and issued its final report in fall 2010. He is also a member of the NYSE's Proxy Working Group and served as a member of the NYSE's board of directors from 2001 to 2003. In addition, he served as chairman of the NYSE's Regulation, Enforcement and Listing Standards Committee until 2008, and previously was a member of the NYSE's Legal Advisory Committee and the NYSE Committee for Review. Larry has served on a number of advisory boards and committees, including: the SEC's Advisory Committee on Capital Formation and Regulatory Processes; ABA Committee on Federal Regulation of Securities; and Legal Advisory Board of NASD, Inc. Additionally, he is a member of the board of trustees and a founding fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel. In 1999, Larry was selected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a trustee of Santa Clara University (SCU), was recently chosen as the honorary chair of SCU's High Technology Law Institute, and is a Foreign Policy Association Fellow. Larry was formerly a trustee at the University of California, Berkeley (1990-1996), and has served on the Board of Advisors of the Technical Law Journal at Boalt Hall. He has taught at Stanford Law School and UC Berkeley School of Law.