Julio Avalos

Julio Avalos’ Biography

View moreless

Julio Avalos is one of the leading business executives and attorneys of the information age. He has been lauded by the Wall Street Journal for being 'present at the founding of the internet era as we know it' and for 'help[ing] to shape the social phase of the digital era.' Equally acclaimed as one of the leading attorneys, business executives and thinkers of the time, Julio most recently served as both Chief Business, Strategy & Operations Officer and General Counsel for GitHub, Inc., the world's most important software development platform. Julio was also a member of GitHub's Board of Directors.

Previously, Julio represented or helped build some of the world's most important technology companies, including Yelp, Apple, and LinkedIn. He represented Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg through its formative years, including in the case that became the subject of the Oscar-winning film "The Social Network."

Julio joined GitHub in 2012 at the time of the company's Series A. In the time before its acquisition by Microsoft in 2018, Julio oversaw the company's business operations, including... Julio Avalos is one of the leading business executives and attorneys of the information age. He has been lauded by the Wall Street Journal for being 'present at the founding of the internet era as we know it' and for 'help[ing] to shape the social phase of the digital era.' Equally acclaimed as one of the leading attorneys, business executives and thinkers of the time, Julio most recently served as both Chief Business, Strategy & Operations Officer and General Counsel for GitHub, Inc., the world's most important software development platform. Julio was also a member of GitHub's Board of Directors.

Previously, Julio represented or helped build some of the world's most important technology companies, including Yelp, Apple, and LinkedIn. He represented Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg through its formative years, including in the case that became the subject of the Oscar-winning film "The Social Network."

Julio joined GitHub in 2012 at the time of the company's Series A. In the time before its acquisition by Microsoft in 2018, Julio oversaw the company's business operations, including its marketing, branding, communications, finance, policy, HR, and diversity and inclusion efforts, in addition to defining and scaling its mission, values, company strategy, and global community.

A trenchant speaker on contemporary social and digital issues, Julio has been interviewed by CNBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has been named legal innovator of the year (The Recorder, 2014), the top in-house technology attorney in the United States (GC Magazine, 2015), as well as one of the country’s top 100 Latino Business Executives (HITEC 2019). Julio's approach is rooted in his experience as a first-generation American, yogi, intellectual, and writer. His philosophical and theoretical work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including American Imago, founded by Sigmund Freud and published by Johns Hopkins University. moreless

Julio Avalos’ Newsfeed

Wall Street Journal

GitHub Legal Chief Warns Companies About U.S. Reluctance to Regulate Data Privacy and Security

Mr. Avalos told WSJ Pro Cybersecurity in an interview that the “abdication of American leadership” in the area of data privacy and security regulation is causing companies to look to other countries for an indication of where international tech policy is headed. Businesses should instead be pushing legislators to create new American technology laws, he maintained. The decade that he spent advising Silicon Valley giants through the rise and turmoil of social media has given Mr. Avalos ideas about how to rebuild the contract underpinning firms’ security and privacy obligations to users.

Julio Avalos’ Background

GitHub Inc.

Chief Business, Strategy & Operations Officer; General Counsel

Dec 2012 - Present

San Francisco, CA, USA

GitHub is a software coding platform which supports a community of over 36 million people, where they can learn, share and work together to build software.

Yelp

Attorney

Apr 2011 - Dec 2012

San Francisco, CA, USA

Yelp was founded in 2004 with the aim of helping people find good local businesses by connecting with other Yelp users and their reviews.

View allHide

Previous Board Positions

GitHub Inc.

Board of Directors

San Francisco, CA, USA

GitHub is a software coding platform which supports a community of over 36 million people, where they can learn, share and work together to build software.

Current Advisory Roles

Merico

Advisor

San Francisco, CA, USA

Merico is a first-of-its-kind code analytics solution applying ML-powered analysis to extract insights focused on code-quality, productivity, and team effectiveness. Its core value to its users is in delivering objective and quantified trends and metrics for executives and engineering managers to better understand where teams and individuals are struggling, and where they are excelling.

Media

Successfully Managing The Hyper-Growth Stage

Interview

Feb 2018

San Francisco, CA, USA

VentureBeat staff writer Blair Hanley Frank interviews Github Chief Strategy Officer, Julio Avalos, at SaaStr 2018.

Publications

Thoughts on the State of the Profession

Lecture

Apr 2019

Palo Alto, CA, USA

Transcript from a recent keynote at Stanford Law School.

Awards & Endorsements

HITECH Top 100

Top 100 Latino Business Executives

2019

New York, NY, USA

The HITEC 100 is comprised of the 100 most influential and notable Hispanic professionals in the technology industry.

The Recorder

Legal Innovator of the Year

2014

New York, NY, USA

The Recorder recognizes the legal industry's leading innovators for a variety of actions. This includes disrupting the system and changing the way things are done, restructuring an organization, and, among other factors, building a more efficient decision-making process within a firm.

View allHide

Speaking Engagements

Stanford Law School: FutureLaw 2019 Conference

Keynote Address

Palo Alto, CA, USA

Julio Avalos was the Closing Keynote Speaker for Stanford Law School's FutureLaw 2019 Conference.

GitHub Universe 2018

Keynote Speaker

Oct 2018

San Francisco, CA, USA

GitHub Universe is a two-day conference dedicated to the creativity and curiosity of the largest software community in the world. Sessions cover topics from team culture to open source software across industries and technologies.