Tekedra Mawakana

Tekedra Mawakana is an American businesswoman and lawyer who currently serves as co-chief executive officer of Waymo. Previously, she was the company's chief operating officer, and prior employers have included Steptoe & Johnson, AOL, Yahoo!, and eBay. Mawakana has served on the boards of the Consumer Technology Association, the Global Network Initiative, the Internet Association, Boom Supersonic, Operator Collective, and Intuit. Early life and education Tekedra Mawakana was born in the U.S. state of Mississippi and later resided in Georgia, Texas, and Virginia. Mawakana is a Doctor of Law. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Trinity Washington University in 1993, before earning her Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School. Career Mawakana began her career at Steptoe & Johnson, an international law firm based in Washington, D.C., where she focused on intellectual property and telecommunication. She then held a corporate counsel position at the "mid-size Washington-area" telecommunications company Startec Global Communications. Mawakana later held policy roles in legal departments at AOL and Yahoo! She worked at AOL for approximately twelve years before becoming Yahoo!'s deputy general counsel in 2013, where she led the Washington, D.C. office and efforts to combat mass surveillance. She then served as eBay's head of global government relations for 14 months, starting in 2016.