Honored GCs
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Brackett B. Denniston III
Brackett B. Denniston III is senior vice president and general counsel of GE, a role he has held since 2004.
Responsible for the GE legal organization worldwide and for all GE legal operations, Mr. Denniston reports directly to GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. He is a member of GE's Corporate Executive Council and GE Capital's Board of Directors. He is also chair of the company's Policy Compliance Review Board.
Mr. Denniston joined GE as vice president and senior counsel for Litigation and Legal Policy in September 1996.
From 1993 to 1996 Mr. Denniston served as chief legal counsel to Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld. His responsibilities included judicial selection, litigation, criminal justice issues and legislation.
Mr. Denniston was an associate and later a partner at Goodwin, Procter and Hoar in Boston, where he specialized in complex civil litigation, securities matters and white-collar crime. He represented parties in cases involving insider trading, pharmaceutical prosecutions, securities fraud and banking cases. He was a member of the firm's Executive Committee and numerous other firm committees.
From 1982 to 1986 Mr. Denniston served in the U.S. Attorney's Office as Chief of the Major Frauds Unit, where he was responsible for white-collar crime prosecutions. A member of the Attorney General's White Collar Crime Operations Committee, he was awarded the Director's Award for Superior Performance by the Department of Justice for his role in more than 100 successful prosecutions.
Mr. Denniston served as a law clerk to the Honorable Herbert Y. Choy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1973-74. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Kenyon College and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Active in civic and charitable pursuits, Mr. Denniston is a trustee and secretary of Kenyon College, a former chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals of Duxbury, Massachusetts, a chair and trustee of the New England Legal Foundation, and a member of the Board of the American Arbitration Association and the Pro Bono Partnership.
Mr. Denniston and his wife Kathleen have three children, Alexandra, Brackett and Elizabeth.
Leonard Kennedy
Len Kennedy serves as the general counsel of Sprint Nextel. As chief legal officer of Sprint and its controlled subsidiaries, Mr. Kennedy oversees all the legal affairs of the company and reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer and Board of Directors. He previously served as the senior vice president and general counsel of Nextel Communications, Inc.
Prior to joining Nextel in January 2001, Mr. Kennedy was partner at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, P.L.L.C. advising clients on telecommunications law, regulation and policy, including local exchange, alternate access, cellular radio, personal communications services, long-distance, and the Internet and information services. From 1980 to 1988, Mr. Kennedy served in several capacities at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) including senior legal advisor to Commissioner Patricia Diaz Dennis. He also served as senior legal advisor to Commissioner Ervin S. Duggan from 1990-1991.
Mr. Kennedy served as a member of the Board, and subsequently chairman, of the Appleseed Foundation in Washington, D.C. He also served as a member and Chairman of the Finance Committee, and Chairman of the Board of Governors, of the Grace Episcopal Day School in Kensington, MD. Presently, Mr. Kennedy serves on the Board of Trustees of the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Kennedy received a Juris Doctorate in 1977 and a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1974 from Cornell University.
Roderick A. Palmore
Roderick A. Palmore is Executive Vice President, General Counsel & Chief Corporate and Risk Management Officer of General Mills, Inc. Palmore joined General Mills in February 2008 from Sara Lee Corporation, where he was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary from 1996 to 2008.
Palmore previously was a partner with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago, which he joined in 1993. He was a partner with Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon from 1986 to 1993, having joined that firm as an associate in 1982. His prior experience includes work as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois.
Palmore is a director of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. He also was a director of Nuveen Investments prior to its sale to Madison Dearborn Partners. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of General Counsel. He has served on the board of directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, the Public Interest Law Initiative, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. He also has served on the Chicago Bar Association’s Board of Managers.
Palmore attended Yale University, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in economics. Palmore received a juris doctorate degree from the University of Chicago Law School.
Gloria Santona
Gloria Santona is the chief legal officer of McDonald’s Corporation, the world’s largest quick service restaurant company, with over 30,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. In this role, she leads McDonald’s worldwide legal, compliance, regulatory and corporate governance functions. As part of McDonald’s senior leadership team, Ms. Santona is also actively involved in the company’s strategic direction and growth. Ms. Santona has fostered the legal department’s diversity efforts and on-going engagement in pro-bono legal services, which have garnered the McDonald’s Legal Department awards in recognition of the legal and educational services it has provided to underserved communities.
Ms. Santona joined McDonald’s as an attorney upon her graduation from the University of Michigan Law School, and subsequently held a number of management positions in the legal department. She became the company’s corporate secretary in 1996 and has served as general counsel since 2001. She is a director of Aon Corporation, serving on its Audit and Governance Committees and as Chairman of its Compliance Committee. In addition, Ms. Santona serves on the Boards of the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Chicago, and as a trustee of Rush University Medical Center. Ms. Santona is a member of several professional organizations and is a frequent speaker and panel member on a variety of diversity, legal, compliance and corporate governance topics. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business Magazine and has received numerous awards, including the Women with Vision Award from the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois, the Excellence in Corporate Practice Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel and the Women of Achievement Award from the Anti-Defamation League. Ms. Santona will be receiving the 2008 National Hispanic Woman of the Year Award from the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation.
Mark Treanor
Mark Treanor is Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Wachovia Corporation. As General Counsel he is responsible for legal, regulatory and legislative issues related to the Company's domestic and global businesses. He leads a Legal Division of 400, including Wachovia's Government Relations team and over 200 attorneys located in offices throughout the United States and in Hong Kong and London and manages the Company's relationships with scores of law firms in the United States and abroad. As a Senior Executive Vice President, he is a member of Wachovia's Operating Committee which is responsible for overall leadership, strategic planning, finances and management of a diversified financial institution with offices throughout the United States and around the globe and comprising over 100,000 employees and over one-half trillion dollars in assets. Treanor is also a member of the Board of Wachovia Bank, N.A.; chairs Wachovia's Pandemic Planning Committee and is a member of the Senior Risk Committee focusing on the most significant risks to the corporation as a whole, a member of Wachovia's Investment Review Committee focused on major corporate infrastructure and business investment, and is a member of the Corporate Diversity Council.
A United States Naval Academy graduate, Treanor served as a Marine Corps Infantry Officer in Vietnam and maintains a strong interest in international relations and national security issues. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Export – Import Bank of the United States; Chairman of the National Defense University Foundation; and has chaired the Global Issues Committee for the Financial Services Roundtable. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; of Business Executives for National Security; a member of the Board of Visitors of both the National Defense University and the U.S. Naval Academy; a member of the Wilson Council of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform and is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum. He holds a current Top Secret / SCI security clearance and has participated in Department of Defense sponsored fact finding missions to Iraq, Kosovo, the Horn of Africa, Yemen and other places in Africa and Europe.
