Francisco Sanchez is the general counsel and vice president of Law & Intellectual Property of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. (AHM), where he oversees the Law Business and Intellectual Property functions for AHM and related U.S. companies.
Sanchez joined Honda in May 1991, in the Law Department of Honda North America, Inc. He first focused on high profile product liability cases and subsequently handled employment litigation, class actions and dealer relations matters.
In 1998, Sanchez was named managing counsel of the product liability and product-related class action group, advancing to assistant general counsel in 2009, and adding dealer matters and intellectual property litigation to his existing managing portfolio.
In 2012, Sanchez became general counsel at Honda Patents & Technologies, LLC (HPT), where he oversaw all aspects of Honda's intellectual property legal function in the United States. This included supervising HPT's patent, trademark, and copyright attorneys in California and Ohio, in all of their intellectual property related activities, including litigation, prosecution, enforcement, licensing, and counterfeit prevention.
In 2016, Sanchez became a vice president of HPT in addition to his responsibility as general counsel.
In 2020, HPT was integrated into American Honda Motor Co., Inc. as the company looked to strengthen its regional responsibility functions in North America. In conjunction with this restructuring, Sanchez became vice president and chief IP counsel of the Intellectual Property Business Unit of American Honda.
In 2020, Sanchez also became Division Head and vice president of Sales/Corporate Legal Support within the Law Business Unit.
In April 2022, Sanchez assumed his current role as general counsel and vice president of Law & Intellectual Property of American Honda.
Sanchez holds a J.D. at the Loyola School of Law in Los Angeles and a B.A. in Political Science at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA).
