The 2017 class of Leadership San Antonio was touring the nonprofit health care organization BioBridge Global and helping assemble packets used to match marrow donors with patients.
One class member — Rackspace Technology Senior Counsel Brenna Nava, a former high school dance teacher turned corporate in-house counsel — was fascinated.
Seven years later, Preferred Legal Counsel President Morgan Matson called Nava with an interesting opportunity: the deputy general counsel position at BioBridge.
“That [2017] visit stayed with me. Meeting the leaders brought that mission to life,” Nava told The Texas Lawbook. “I heard incredible stories about how an organization right here in San Antonio was finding new ways to save lives, serve our community and help advance potential cures. I had known one part of its work, but those conversations opened my eyes to how much more it was doing.”
Nava got the job.
“What drew me to BioBridge was the chance to contribute to that work,” she said. “I’ve always loved learning, and here was an opportunity to step into a complex, evolving field where the work had a very human purpose. The curiosity got me in the door; the people and the mission made me want to stay.”
In her two years at BioBridge, Nava’s extraordinary accomplishments include:
- Implementing a robust enterprise-wide contracts management system;
- Negotiating highly technical and sophisticated collaboration agreements that further advancements in lymphoma, inflammatory cardiovascular disease, cell-based tissue repair, chronic sciatica and other diseases;
- Leading the patent process for a number of innovations, including a patent for a biomedical research technology that replicates human organ functions to provide physiologically relevant platforms for studying human biology and drug responses, offering greater accuracy over traditional animal models; and
- Conceiving and helping establish a partnership between Bexar County Probation and South Texas Blood & Tissue Center that allows eligible probation participants to earn community service credit through blood donation.
“Brenna’s hard work and leadership are literally saving lives,” said BioBridge General Counsel Richey Wyatt. “Brenna has assumed the working leadership of BioBridge Global’s legal department and through that position she has been instrumental in the execution of BBG’s mission, saving and enhancing lives through the healing power of human cells and tissues.”
Citing her achievements during the past 18 months, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio chapter and The Texas Lawbook are awarding Nava the 2026 San Antonio Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department (five attorneys or fewer).
“Brenna is not just an outstanding attorney, but an impactful leader in the truest sense,” Wyatt wrote in nominating Nava for the award. “Through intelligence, tenacity and the highest ethical standards — and always with a smile — she provides expertise, fosters collaboration, and achieves impactful results.”
Paul Storm, a patent law partner at Foley & Lardner, said Nava is great at “keeping both the details and the big picture in mind at the same time.”
“Brenna has an unflagging positive attitude and is always looking for solutions to the issues at hand — not just identifying problems and stopping,” said Storm, who worked with Nava at Rackspace. “We need more Brennas in the practice of law — someone who is dedicated to representing their client without turning every other party into an enemy.”
Nava said BioBridge has a great story to tell that is “much broader than people may realize.”
“Blood and tissue donation, testing that helps make transfusions and transplants safer, and the development of advanced therapies are all parts of our work,” Nava said. “The challenge is making that complex science understandable and showing how each part connects to someone’s life. When people understand both what we do and why it matters, they can see what their support makes possible.”
Nava was born in Abilene to a large family. Her mother, who worked in data entry, was one of five children. Her father, an Air Force veteran who became a registered nurse, was one of nine.
“There were aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents woven through my childhood,” she said. “I grew up with the feeling that I belonged to something much bigger than myself.”
After graduating from West Texas A&M University in 2000, Nava taught dance.
“I loved teaching and the students who filled my days, but those days were long — eight in the morning to eight at night, on my feet, with just two 30-minute breaks,” she said.
Her husband, Alex Nava, was a law student at St. Mary’s University School of Law.
“Casebooks and studying were part of our life together from the beginning,” she said. “Somewhere in the middle of his law school years, we started talking about whether I might go, too. It hadn’t been the plan. But I did what most sane people probably wouldn’t: watched someone go through law school and said, ‘I’d like to do that, too.’”
Nava had another legal role model — her aunt Tamra English, a Baylor Law School graduate who practiced civil litigation in Texas and California. In 2012, English joined the in-house legal department at the University of Texas. In 2024, she became general counsel at the University of Northern Colorado.
Nava said English was an influence, but it was her husband — now a trial lawyer at A Nava & Glander — who made the biggest impact.
“As a kid, I heard that I should be a lawyer because I loved to argue,” she said. “But the idea didn’t really take hold until I watched my husband go through law school. Had it not been for my husband, I probably would still be teaching dance, sewing sequins on costumes, and making headpieces. And I can imagine a very happy life doing that. Watching him go through law school opened a door I hadn’t seriously considered.”
Nava graduated from St. Mary’s in 2007 and joined the labor and employment practice at Haynes Boone.
“One of the things that drew me to the firm was something I noticed during my interview: the staff seemed happy,” she said. “That mattered to me. How attorneys treat the people they work with every day tells you a great deal about the culture.”
“I’ve always loved employment law because, at its heart, you’re dealing with people,” she said.
In 2012, a colleague of Nava’s met with Mary Stich, the deputy GC at Rackspace, and learned the company was seeking an attorney with employment and litigation experience. The colleague told Nava and she “jumped at the opportunity.”
Nava said Rackspace’s most complex lawsuits involved employment issues and patent infringement.
“The patent work was particularly memorable,” she said. “We fought patent trolls and we fought hard. Going in-house gave me the chance to become part of a company whose culture excited me and the legal work took me places I couldn’t have anticipated.”
Stich said Nava, who spent 10 years at Rackspace, is “an outstanding human and simply a beautiful person with an outstanding ethical compass.”
“I would trust her to solve any problem, with wisdom, creativity and practical business judgment. Importantly, she is very inclusive and collaborative,” Stich said.
After spending nearly two years at an Austin-based software company, Nava joined BioBridge in July 2024.
“What I enjoy most is learning about the work happening across BioBridge — the ways we support health care professionals in saving lives and help scientists and physicians bring new treatments closer to patients,” she said. “There is always something new to learn, and behind the science is a person who needs help. That makes the work meaningful to me.”
One of the biggest challenges, according to Nava, is funding.
“Research is expensive, and not every promising idea becomes a successful treatment,” she said. “But even when something doesn’t work, what we learn can move us closer to something that does. Helping people understand the value of that process is part of the challenge.”
In nominating Nava, Wyatt highlighted two projects — the Mobile Leukapheresis Center and the Heroes in Arms program — in which he said Nava played a “pivotal leadership role.”
The Mobile Leukapheresis Center is the world’s first self-contained mobile unit that collects immune cells for advanced cell and gene therapies.
The Heroes in Arms program addresses the time between a life-threatening injury and getting lifesaving blood. It puts specially screened, low-titer type O whole blood in the hands of emergency responders so they can begin transfusions at the scene or on the way to the hospital. The program draws on lessons from military medicine, which helps local health care and emergency-response organizations.
“By helping develop and negotiate the complex legal, regulatory and operational frameworks necessary to support the program, Brenna has enabled BBG to expand partnerships with a growing network of emergency medical providers for Heroes in Arms,” Wyatt said.
Nava said her role was to “help put the partnerships behind these programs into place.”
“I work on agreements with pharmaceutical companies such as Kite [Pharma] for the Mobile Leukapheresis Center and with hospitals and emergency service providers participating in Heroes in Arms,” she said. “Those agreements help turn an idea into a service people can access.”
Nava said the Mobile Leukapheresis Center is “especially meaningful” to her.
“My father-in-law had cancer and spent weeks away from family, staying in a hotel while receiving treatment,” she said. “That experience made me appreciate how much it matters to be close to home and the people who support you. The mobile center brings immune-cell collection, an essential step in certain advanced therapies, closer to patients, reducing the travel required for that part of their care.”
Katherine A. Tapley, a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright who met Nava in law school at St. Mary’s more than 20 years ago, said Nava’s recognition as the 2026 San Antonio Senior Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department is “highly deserved.”
“From the beginning of our friendship, I was certain that Brenna would become an exceptional attorney,” Tapley said. “I have had the privilege of watching her grow into the highly skilled and respected lawyer and leader that she is today. Brenna takes an ethical, honest and solutions-oriented approach to everything she does.”
“She is widely respected for her legal judgment and leadership, but also for her dedication to the community and her commitment to giving back,” she said.
Click here for a Premium Subscriber Q&A with Nava, where he shares what she looks for in hiring outside counsel.
Six fun facts about Brenna Nava
Favorite book: A Wrinkle in Time has been my favorite since I was in grade school. I appreciate that the heroine doesn’t have to become someone else to be extraordinary. She is bright, stubborn, emotional and sometimes uncomfortable in her own skin. The qualities that make her feel difficult or different also help her save the people she loves. There’s something powerful about a heroine whose rough edges belong in the story. The book also makes room for science and wonder together. Mathematics, the universe, imagination, and love all matter. You don’t have to choose between an intellectual life and a creative one.
Beneath the adventure is a deeply personal struggle: how to protect individuality in a world that demands conformity and how to reach someone you love when intelligence alone isn’t enough.
It teaches that you can be imperfect, feel things intensely and still be exactly the person who is needed.
Favorite music group: Fleetwood Mac
Favorite movie: An Affair to Remember
Favorite restaurant: Bin 555 and the grilled goat cheese sandwiches
Favorite beverage: Carajillo
Favorite vacation ever: Aruba in 2019. We had a large group of extended family. It was relaxing and we were able to try new things. It was the first time I ever snorkeled, and we walked on the seafloor using SeaTrek.