Washington, D.C., Dec. 16, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is pleased to welcome leading retail industry advisor and highly regarded policy advocate Paul Martino, who joins the firm as a partner. Martino served for ten years as vice president and senior policy counsel at the National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, where he was responsible for developing industry-leading policy advocacy efforts on emerging technology and consumer data privacy issues.
Based in Washington, D.C., Martino has nearly 25 years of experience advising on and leading regulatory and legislative advocacy efforts relating to global, federal and state policy matters affecting retailers, chain restaurants and other consumer-facing companies, with a particular focus on e-commerce and consumer protection issues, including data privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
“Paul’s extensive experience as a policy advocate and advisor to the most influential global retailers aligns with our strategic retail industry focus and provides exciting opportunities for collaboration with our leading privacy and cybersecurity team and government relations practice,” said Eric Murdock, head of Hunton Andrews Kurth’s administrative law team. “We are pleased to welcome Paul to the firm.”
During his tenure at NRF, Martino established the organization as a nationally-recognized public policy leader on consumer data privacy, cybersecurity and other e-commerce issues. Among other initiatives, Martino founded and led the Main Street Privacy Coalition (MSPC), comprised of 20 national trade groups representing retail, restaurant, hotel, grocery, convenience, gas station, travel plaza, real estate, home builder, self-storage and other consumer-serving businesses that line America’s Main Streets.
Martino’s leadership and inclusive approach to coalition building, management, and direction greatly contributed to MSPC’s growth and rise as a power player in Washington’s legislative and regulatory arena. His advocacy work on behalf of NRF, an MSPC member association, further strengthened the coalition’s effectiveness in Congressional hearings and member listening sessions before committees of jurisdiction. He served as the principal author of white papers, letters to Congress, and comments to the Federal Trade Commission, and designed convincing charts, infographics, and other accessible materials to highlight for members of Congress the shared concerns of consumer-facing businesses seeking to preserve their responsible use of consumer data to better serve their customers.
Martino was also responsible for overseeing NRF’s government relations and advocacy efforts in the European Union (EU) on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the AI Act and other e-commerce regulatory proposals. He developed the U.S. retail industry’s annual delegation trip to Brussels to engage with senior EU and U.S. officials on transatlantic data transfer policy, co-authoring white papers with European retail industry representatives to address critical concerns with the GDPR and to support the European Commission’s adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
Prior to his service at NRF, Martino co-chaired the Privacy and Data Security Task Force as a legislative and public policy practice partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Washington, where he represented businesses, trade associations and industry coalitions before Congress, federal departments and independent agencies on legislative and regulatory issues affecting the consumer reporting, financial services, retail, internet, e-commerce and high tech industries.
Earlier in his career, Martino served as majority counsel to the Senate Commerce Committee and its longtime Chairman John McCain as lead counsel on internet, e-commerce and consumer data privacy issues. He began his legal career in Silicon Valley representing startup and emerging growth high-tech companies in venture capital financings and initial public offerings at the onset of the commercialization of the Internet in the mid-1990s.
Martino earned his undergraduate degree in American government from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, and his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
- Paul Martino, Partner, Hunton Andrews Kurth, LLP