Chris Sonderby

VP & Deputy General Counsel, Facebook

Chris Sonderby is VP and Deputy General Counsel at Facebook and oversees global teams responsible for investigations, regulatory matters, cybersecurity, law enforcement, integrity, safety, commercial, and payments. Before joining Facebook, Chris was a federal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice for over a dozen years. From 2006 until 2010, Chris served as the DOJ's Attaché for Asia based at the US Embassy in Bangkok, coordinating large-scale transnational criminal and national security matters with US and foreign authorities. Chris also served as the Chief of the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the US Attorney's Office in San Jose, the first and leading high-technology prosecution unit in the US, and founded and led the Computer Crimes Section of the US Attorney's Office in Sacramento. In these roles, Chris successfully led prosecutions relating to computer intrusions, trade secrets theft, political corruption, securities fraud, terrorism, and trafficking offenses. Chris has taught trial advocacy and computer crimes classes as an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley's law school and as a Faculty Member at the DOJ's National Advocacy Center. Chris graduated from the University of Chicago Law School (JD, '93) and the University of Michigan (BA, '90). Chris credits the richness and breadth of his LSA education—which developed capabilities for critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and problem-solving—as the foundation of his personal and professional achievements. Chris, along with his wife Jill, are active supporters of public education in their community and enjoy traveling around the country and world, including frequent visits to see their two children, a Duck son in Portland, Oregon, and a Wolverine daughter in New York City. Chris has also developed a passion for marathons and will run his fifth consecutive Boston Marathon next year.