About Allison Cannella
Allison Cannella is Senior Vice President and General Counsel at the largest private owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure in the United States, where she leads legal, regulatory, risk and compliance for operations across the country. She brings more than a decade of experience negotiating and closing real estate and corporate transactions to the role.
Leading a legal function at national scale
Allison stepped into the General Counsel position in February 2024, the first time she had held that title, at a company that was in a period of significant growth. Before that, she had spent years building expertise in real estate, regulatory compliance, corporate, tax and REIT structuring, and risk management, the areas that now fall under her legal department’s oversight. Allison combines strong commercial and business acumen with legal judgment to close deals quickly while managing risk appropriately. She pairs legal expertise with a focus on operational efficiency to continuously improve people, process, and technology in service of business objectives.
From firm practice to private equity to general counsel
Her legal career began at Holland & Knight, a large international law firm, where she worked as an associate on commercial real estate and corporate matters. She then moved into a role as Associate General Counsel at a real estate private equity firm, where she led transactions across acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, mergers, mortgage and mezzanine financings, private and preferred equity investments, and ground-up developments. Over fifteen years of practice, Allison has been involved in negotiating and closing more than thirty billion dollars in real estate, corporate, and strategic transactions.
Building the department
Allison has approached the General Counsel role with an emphasis on authenticity and humility as she has built out the company’s legal function. She leads not from behind a title, but by showing up as herself; a quality that has helped her foster a culture that develops, lifts, and engages employees.
Education
Her education is rooted at the University of Florida, where she earned both of her undergraduate degrees and her law degree. Published profiles list her bachelor’s degrees as being in public relations and political science. She graduated summa cum laude in her bachelor’s programs, then earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she served as a Managing Editor on the Florida Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif, which is the highest academic honor society for law school graduates in the United States, recognizing students who graduate in the top 10% of their class. In 2025, the University of Florida Alumni Association named her a 40 Gators Under 40 honoree. She has also been recognized with induction into the University of Florida Hall of Fame, according to her official company biography.
Industry involvement
Outside of her day-to-day legal work, Allison has spoken at ConnectX, an event that describes itself as the largest gathering of wireless infrastructure professionals in the country. She has also participated in an interview with JSA TV about her work and her perspective on the digital infrastructure sector.
Allison’s career has moved from firm practice, to private equity, to a General Counsel role at a company operating at national scale, with each position building on the transactional and legal experience from the one before it. Her background in complex real estate and corporate transactions, combined with her experience overseeing legal and compliance functions at national scale, reflects a depth of experience that few General Counsels in the infrastructure and real estate sector bring to the role. She continues to lead the company’s legal, risk, leasing operations and compliance functions today.