Biography of Benjamin W. Heineman Jr.

From 1987-2003, Mr. Heineman was the Senior Vice President-General Counsel for General Electric. He then served as Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs until his retirement at the end of 2005. Mr. Heineman was responsible for managing a team of 1,100 in-house lawyers in over 100 countries around the world. Under his guidance, GE's legal department became world-renowned for its excellence, not only in legal service, but also for the major role that its attorneys play in business and management.

Prior to joining General Electric, Mr. Heineman was a managing partner at Sidley & Austin, focusing on Supreme Court and test case litigation. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation with the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Carter. Mr. Heineman began his career as a staff attorney for the Center for Law & Social Policy in Washington, D.C., and moved on to become a litigator at Williams & Connolly.

Mr. Heineman is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Program on the Legal Profession at the Harvard Law School, and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He researches and writes on a variety of topics, including globalization, anticorruption, corporate citizenship, dispute resolution, and the legal profession. Mr. Heineman also serves on the boards of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Transparency International-USA and The National Constitution Center. He is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency.