Alessandra Murata

Ali is co-chair of Cooley’s compensation & benefits practice group. She is a leading adviser to companies, management teams, venture capital, boards of directors, and compensation committees on executive compensation and benefits issues arising in every stage of the corporate life cycle – ranging from emerging growth to blue-chip public. She also counsels companies through transformative events, such as mergers & acquisitions, initial public offerings (IPOs), venture capital and leveraged buyout transactions, spinoffs, restructurings, and other transformative corporate events. With more than two decades of practice experience spanning many industries, her current practice focuses on cutting-edge technology and life sciences companies of all sizes, as well as clients within the private equity and real estate investment trust (REIT) sectors.

Ali’s background includes significant experience counseling on executive compensation-related securities filing disclosures, special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and umbrella partnership C corporation (UP-C) structuring, and stock and stock-based compensation, as well as negotiating and shaping the compensation and benefits aspects of transaction agreements and associated documents with underlying size values ranging from $20 million to $51 billion.

 Ali frequently contributes to thought leadership, often moderating panels with other high-profile industry professionals and presenting on fresh regulatory developments. Some recent examples include a number of presentations covering the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new pay-versus-performance disclosure rules with Compensia’s Mark Borges, Infinite Equity and others; Cooley’s annual Comp Talks series, consisting of webinars discussing current and upcoming hot topics in compensation and benefits; and active involvement with the American Bar Association’s Joint Committee on Employee Benefits (JCEB), which engages with government and regulatory agencies. She has been an IPO Institute faculty member and a panelist at Cooley and Deloitte’s joint event, Life as a Late-Stage Private Company.

Ali is frequently recognized for her work on compensation-related issues. Her recent publications include a feature in The Corporate Counsel, and she is a contributing author to “The Section 409A Handbook” (BNA 2016), the definitive treatise on the subject.  

Ali began her career at Debevoise and spent more than a decade as executive compensation & benefits counsel in Skadden’s New York and Palo Alto offices. Before joining Cooley, Ali was a partner at Goodwin Procter in its ERISA & executive compensation practice.

Ali is ranked by Chambers USA in Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation, as well as on other national and regional industry lists.