Tim Sparapani

Founder, SPQR Strategies

In addition to his work with partners Mark Harmon and Robert Radovan leading the development of the Waldorf Astoria Texas Hill Country in Fredericksburg, Texas, Tim Sparapani, is an advisor, lawyer, and investor specializing in start-ups with numerous exits.
Most recently, Tim cofounded and built Blue Run Spirits, a luxury, ultra-premium, Kentucky whisky company sold in 2023 to Molson Coors. Tim’s leadership as Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel helped grow Blue Run from ideation to sale in less than 3 years. Following the transaction, Tim serves on the Board of Directors of Coors Spirits Co.
Tim is a co-founder and leader of Find Familiar Spirits, LLC, an innovative company that creates new luxury beverage brands and sells those beverages direct-to-consumer to audiences with unique hobbies and interests. Tim’s co-founders are a group of well-known actors and screenwriters from Hollywood. In less than two years Find Familiar Spirits has revolutionized luxury alcohol beverage brand creation and sold millions in goods to discerning consumers.
Tim is also the Founder and Principal at SPQR Strategies, PLLC, where he is a legislative, legal and strategic consultant who helps companies and consumer and privacy advocates understand and respond to the pressures created for businesses, consumers and governments by emerging technologies.  Tim’s specialties are privacy, online safety, content moderation, and constitutional law.  Tim’s clients are a diverse mix of industry leading companies, dynamic technology startups, and thought leading advocacy organizations.  
He is also a frequent startup founder, key employee, or entrepreneur with numerous successful exits. In addition to co-founding Blue Run Spirits, Tim served as outside General Counsel for Remind, acquired by ParentSquare in 2023, invested in Mezzobit, acquired by OpenX in 2016, and helped build and lead PrivacyMate, acquired by Aura in 2019. Tim served as outside General Counsel for Smyte, acquired by Twitter in 2018.
Tim is a frequent public speaker on topics related to emerging technologies.  He has testified before Congress five times and given more than 500 TV, radio and print interviews.
Tim’s SPQR Strategies clients have asked him to undertake important, ongoing responsibilities.  For example, Tim served for 3 years as the Vice President, Policy, Law & Government Affairs for the Application Developers Alliance, a trade association serving more than 30,000 application “app” developers and 200 member companies.  Tim has also served as General Counsel for several tech startups.  He advises other start-up tech companies on a range of policy matters including privacy, content moderation, and online safety and security.
Tim was the first Director of Public Policy at Facebook. He was responsible for developing and implementing the company’s interaction with the federal, state, local and foreign governments and with opinion and policy makers.  He managed these roles as the company grew from 150 million to more than 1 billion active users.  Prior to joining Facebook, Tim was Senior Legislative Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, where he helped advance the constitutional principle of the right to privacy, representing the ACLU before Congress, the Executive Branch and the media.  For the more than four years preceding his time at the ACLU, Tim served as an associate at the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro where he helped clients navigate interconnecting constitutional, statutory, political and policy challenges.  
Tim holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the law school at the University of Michigan.