Dear SIIA Member,

I am delighted to announce that the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) Executive Committee of the Board of Directors has named SIIA Senior Vice President for Intellectual Property and General Counsel Chris Mohr Interim President of SIIA. The appointment follows my recent announcement of the departure of current SIIA President Jeff Joseph at the end of July to join a global communications firm.

Chris’ experience with SIIA and knowledge of team members make him a superior choice for this role. He has provided SIIA and our member organizations with eight years of outstanding service since first joining the association in 2015 as Vice President for IP and General Counsel. Across his tenure with SIIA, Chris has developed policy positions and represented SIIA and our member organizations before Congress, state legislatures and federal agencies on Intellectual Property (IP), constitutional law, data privacy and related issues of interest to our association and our members. He also created and leads SIIA’s Strategic Filing Program, designed to take a long-term approach to our organization’s policy goals in patent, copyright, privacy, tax, patent, and other areas, with particular focus on the federal appellate and Supreme Court docket.

Chris has coordinated closely across SIIA Divisions to provide counsel on legal, contractual and key policy issues. In addition to these duties, Chris has worked as General Counsel to protect the legal interests of our association, ensure good corporate governance, as well as manage the organization's legal matters and litigation strategy when needed. Chris came to SIIA following eighteen years in private legal practice with the firm Meyer, Klipper & Mohr, PLLC where he represented his clients on a variety of issues including intellectual property, privacy, and constitutional rights.

Chris will assume the Interim President role beginning Monday, August 1st and will continue until further notice. The Board will collaborate closely with Chris to help him succeed in this role. Simultaneously, the Board is moving thoughtfully and deliberately to implement a process to identify a full time president for the organization. We hope to provide more specific information on next steps soon.

Please join me in congratulating Chris and offering our full support. We are confident SIIA will continue its solid growth and strong history of providing outstanding value to our members under Chris’ leadership.

Thank you,

Steven Emmert

Chair, SIIA Board of Directors

Senior Director, Government & Industry Affairs, RELX Inc.