Sonya Passi

Founder and CEO, Freefrom

San Francisco

Sonya Passi, is the founder & CEO of FreeFrom (www.freefrom.org), a national organization empowering survivors of domestic violence to achieve economic justice and financial security so that they can afford to build safe lives for themselves and their children. FreeFrom helps survivors to build income through small business entrepreneurship; helps survivors to build and repair their credit so that they have a strong financial profile with which to rebuild; and helps survivors to win compensation to cover the cost of the abuse they have suffered. For her work with FreeFrom, Sonya has been listed in Forbes' 30 Under 30 Class of 2017 For Law and Policy.

Sonya received her B.A. and M.Phil from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College). While in college, she started the Cambridge Domestic Violence Action Group to educate college and high school students about the realities and nuances of intimate partner violence. After college, Sonya received her J.D from UC Berkeley School of Law. During her second year of law school, Sonya founded the Family Violence Appellate Project ("FVAP") which, in less than four years, has fundamentally changed the legal landscape in California by providing, for the first time, free appellate legal services to survivors of domestic violence. In recognition of this work, Sonya received the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service and the Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong Award for Outstanding Advocacy on Behalf of Social Justice for Women.

Prior to founding FreeFrom, Sonya worked at Morgan Stanley in NYC in the capital markets division.