The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is proud to host a Directors’ Lunch with Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center and former Senior Vice-President for Law and Public Affairs and General Counsel of the General Electric Company (GE).
Prior to his appointment at the Belfer Center in January 2006, Mr. Heineman was the Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs at GE after serving as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for 17 years. A former Rhodes Scholar, editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, he practiced law in Washington before serving at the Department of Housing, Education and Welfare from 1977-1980, ending his tenure there as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Mr. Heineman was then managing partner of the Washington office of Sidley & Austin, focusing on the Supreme Court and test case litigation.
Mr. Heineman is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency. He is a member of the American Law Institute; the Council on Foreign Relations; the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; the Board of Transparency International-USA; the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center; the Board of Managers and Overseers of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
While at the Belfer Center, he has been researching and writing on a wide variety of public and private sector issues, including the global anti-corruption movement, corporate citizenship and social responsibility, the changing role of the corporate general counsel and the inside legal department, the corporate response to terrorism, corporate governance, and corporations and public policy.
Mr. Heineman is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School.
