Chandana Rao brings over 20 years of corporate and intellectual property law experience in both law firm and in-house roles. She has worked extensively as a legal advisor and business consultant to early-stage and established companies, with a particular focus on the technology, fashion, music, consumer goods, and retail industries.

Chandana regularly negotiates and drafts a wide range of legal agreements relating to corporate, IP, and commercial issues, including:

• Licensing
• Cloud services and hosted platforms
• Marketing, sales, and distribution
• Influencers and brand and social media collaborations
• Corporate formation and governance
• Supply and manufacturing

Before joining Outside GC, Chandana served as General Counsel at an early-stage financial technology startup, where she advised management and the advisory board on corporate initiatives, risk mitigation, financings, commercialization, and other legal and compliance matters. In this role, she negotiated technology-related agreements with global customers and partners, including cloud, SaaS, reseller, development, marketing, and license agreements, and advised on and negotiated convertible notes and early-stage (seed and angel) financings. Chandana also advised on corporate and intellectual property strategies and created internal policies to ensure regulatory and legal compliance.

Chandana began her legal career as a patent attorney at a leading U.S. intellectual property firm, representing global pharmaceutical and technology companies. She later advised on and negotiated technology transactions and provided counsel on intellectual property matters in connection with cross-border mergers and acquisitions at a global law firm.

She holds a B.A. in Biology and an M.S. in Cell Biology from Rutgers University, and received her J.D. from Rutgers Law School–Newark, where she was the Business Editor of the Rutgers Law Review.

Chandana lives in New Jersey with her husband and young son. When not helping companies launch, scale, and pivot, she enjoys gardening and following tennis.