Campus & Community

GE’s senior VP becomes fellow at KSG, HLS

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Heineman named first Distinguished Sr. Fellow

General Electric’s (GE) Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs Ben W. Heineman Jr. will become a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government this coming February. At that time, Heineman will also become the first Distinguished Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession.

Heineman

Heineman served as GE’s senior vice president-general counsel from 1987 to 2003 before assuming his current post, which he will leave at the end of this year.

Heineman’s primary activity at both schools will be to conduct research and to write 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; and corporate response to terrorism, corporate governance, and corporations and public policy. He will join with members of the faculty to teach in these and related areas and will also counsel students on career choices.

“We are extremely fortunate to have Ben Heineman joining us,” said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center. “Ben’s extraordinary experience and leadership in addressing public policy issues both in government and at the highest level of a major international corporation will make him a highly valued addition to the center and the Harvard community.”

In addition to his 18 years at GE, Heineman has worked as a partner in two Washington, D.C.-based law firms, both focusing on civil, regulatory, and constitutional litigation.

Heineman holds degrees from Harvard College (1965), Oxford University (1967), and Yale Law School (1971). A former Rhodes Scholar, he served as editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal and as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. He is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency, as well as numerous articles.