Netflix’s former global competition head has joined OpenAI as associate general counsel for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
Andrea Appella was most recently a consultant in the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) team at Herbert Smith Freehills in Milan. He joined the law firm in October 2023 from Netflix, where he was global competition head for more than three years.
The move marks a return in-house for Appella, who has over 25 years of experience in the creative industries, completing stints at 21st Century Fox, Warner Bros, and MTV Europe, among others.
He specialises in competition, intellectual property and regulatory law, having worked on a wide range of mergers and acquisitions—including Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox,—competition proceedings, market and regulatory investigations, copyright and digital single market policy, regulation of audio-visual media services and digital platforms, and artificial intelligence.
Prior to his in-house career, Appella trained and qualified at Herbert Smith Freehills in London. He is dual-qualified in the U.K. and Italy.
“I’m thrilled to share that I’m starting a new position as Associate General Counsel EMEA at OpenAI!”, he announced in a post on LinkedIn. “Privileged to embark on this new adventure and be part of the OpenAI journey with an awesome team!”
OpenAI is the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT, founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman and others in December 2015. At present, Che Chang is general counsel of OpenAI, based in San Francisco. He joined the company in 2021 from Amazon Web Services.
