Vanessa P. Bailey

Growing up Native American and African American in rural Texas, Vanessa saw the digital divide’s impact on certain ethnic groups—and wanted to fix it. She earned degrees in computer science and law from the University of Texas at Austin. Her career took her from clerking at Jones Day to heading patent litigation at Nokia Siemens Networks to leading global IP policy at Intel to heading patent policy at Amazon. She left Amazon in early 2026 and now helps businesses navigate the convergence of intellectual property and AI/data regulation.