Elena Ponte is an attorney at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition, where she assists the Commission in evaluating mergers in the pharmaceutical industry, medical devices field, and technology markets, among others. Before joining the FTC, Elena co-founded an AI startup in Silicon Valley, the first synthetic data company backed by Y-Combinator. Elena was also a fellow at the University of Washington’s Tech Policy Lab, and worked at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) at the UN in New York. In private practice, Elena counseled on international arbitration matters at Herbert Smith Freehills in New York, with focus on LatAm, Asia, and the Middle East. Elena is a member of the Patent Bar and holds an LLM in Intellectual Property Law and Policy from the University of Washington School of Law, as well as a JD from the University of Ottawa.