ADRIANA SANFORD

Adriana Sanford offers strategic guidance to companies navigating mergers, acquisitions, and cross-border regulatory challenges. Her advisory expertise spans a diverse array of industries, including technology, finance, seafood, beverage, telecom, and agriculture, where she has played a key role in facilitating expansion and enhancing negotiation strategies throughout the Americas. Her recent endeavors encompass providing legal and regulatory compliance advice to an international health insurance provider, spearheading incident response for a data breach in Panama, and leading executive education initiatives on privacy and risk management. Her recent appointment to the Steering Group of the National Security Committee, International Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA), effective September 2024, coupled with her engagement with the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative, and her co-authorship of two seminal books on ethics and global threats for the Institute for Supply Management, highlight her substantial influence on legal and ethical discussions both within the legal profession and globally.

Sanford holds a dual Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in international comparative law and taxation from Georgetown University Law Center, alongside a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Notre Dame Law School. Sanford is proficient in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French and possesses foundational knowledge of Italian and German. Her distinguished career includes positions as Latin American Regional Counsel and U.S. Commercial Law Counsel for a Fortune 50 corporation, as well as Associate General Counsel for a publicly traded financial firm.

Sanford’s career embodies a blend of legal expertise, academic contribution, and public advocacy, reflecting a deep commitment to addressing complex challenges globally. She is a principal at Sharakpur, a consultancy firm based in Washington, DC, that specializes in serving governments, foundations, and multilateral organizations. Academically, Sanford has served as a Dean’s Visiting Scholar at Georgetown Law, a Senior Fellow at the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Intelligence and National Security, and the Lincoln Professor of Global Corporate Compliance & Ethics at Arizona State University. She is currently a Senior Research Faculty at Claremont Graduate University and an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Diego, Knauss School of Business. Sanford also serves as an Inspire2Live ambassador, a global health movement based in Amsterdam, and is the Head of Cybersecurity Leadership for Telecom4Good. As a respected international commentator and former CNN Español senior analyst, she has shared her insights with a vast audience, emphasizing the interplay between law, ethics, and global threats.