Laureen E. Seeger
Executive Vice President and General Counsel
American Express Company
Laureen E. Seeger is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of American Express Company, a position she assumed in July 2014. As the corporation’s chief legal officer, Seeger oversees the Law, Government Affairs, Global Security and Corporate Secretarial functions for American Express and its subsidiaries. Ms. Seeger is a member of the company’s Operating Committee, Global Management Team and Enterprise Risk Management Committee.
Prior to American Express, Ms. Seeger served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of McKesson Corporation. Preceding her appointment in March 2006, Seeger was Vice President and General Counsel of McKesson Provider Technologies (MPT), McKesson’s health care information technology solutions business.
Before joining McKesson, Ms. Seeger was with the Atlanta law firm of Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP from 1992 to 2000, where she was Partner-In-Charge of the Technology Litigation Section, and was with the firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue from 1986 to 1992.
Ms. Seeger serves on the board of FTI Consulting, Inc., a global business advisory firm. Ms. Seeger previously served on the board of the California Chamber of Commerce, the board of Umpqua Holdings Corporation, and the Executive Committee of the Association of General Counsel.
She earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Laureen is an All-American in track and field. She is married to David Elliot Cohen, author of photography books including A Day in the Life of America. Together they have five children. She lives in New York City.
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Tony West
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
PepsiCo, Inc.
Tony West is General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Executive Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs of PepsiCo, a Fortune 50 corporation with net revenues of more than $63 billion and a product portfolio that includes 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in annual retail sales PepsiCo’s main businesses — Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola — make hundreds of enjoyable foods and beverages that are respected household names throughout the world.
West leads a team of approximately 450 people worldwide in the company’s global legal, compliance and ethics, government affairs, and public policy functions. He also serves as President of the PepsiCo Foundation.
As PepsiCo’s chief global legal officer, West has emphasized the importance of in-house counsel performing as supportive business partners while maintaining a values-based, ethical corporate culture. Under his leadership, PepsiCo has reaffirmed its reputation for high business integrity, receiving the Corporate Leadership Award from Transparency International-USA and repeatedly winning recognition as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute.
West has more than 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors. Prior to joining PepsiCo, West was twice confirmed by the Senate to serve as a senior Department of Justice official in the Obama Administration. From 2012 to 2014, West was the Associate Attorney General of the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice’s third-ranking official, where he supervised many of the Department’s divisions, including the Civil Rights, Antitrust, Tax, Environment and Natural Resources, and Civil Divisions, as well as the Office of Justice Programs, the Office on Violence Against Women, and the Community Oriented Policing Services Office. From 2009 to 2012, West was the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division, the largest litigating division of the Justice Department.
When West left the Obama Administration in 2014, Attorney General Eric Holder presented him with the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the Department of Justice’s highest honor.
Earlier in his career, West was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California, where he prosecuted a variety of federal crimes. He also served as Special Assistant Attorney General at the California Department of Justice and was, for several years, litigation partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco.
West graduated with honors from Harvard College, where he served as publisher of the Harvard Political Review and received his law degree from Stanford Law School, where he was President of the Stanford Law Review.
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David A. Zapolsky
Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Amazon.com, Inc.
As Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Amazon, David Zapolsky manages a broad range of domestic and international legal, compliance, and regulatory affairs for the company. Before becoming General Counsel in 2012, he served for thirteen years as Associate General Counsel, leading Amazon’s Litigation and Regulatory group and advising on a wide variety of litigation, privacy, consumer protection, competition law, securities regulation, intellectual property, and labor and employment matters.
Prior to joining Amazon in 1999, Zapolsky was a litigation partner in the Seattle offices of Dorsey & Whitney and Bogle & Gates. He moved to Seattle in 1994 from New York, where he served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, focusing primarily on sex crimes, child abuse and domestic violence prosecutions, and an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where he practiced securities litigation and white collar defense. He is a graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California and Columbia College in New York City.
In addition to his work at Amazon, Zapolsky is active in several civic, educational, and legal organizations that, among other things, seek to promote diversity and pro bono work in the legal profession. He serves as a Trustee of the King County Bar Foundation, a member of the Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) Washington State Advisory Committee, a Director of the Boalt Hall Alumni Association, and a Director of Seattle’s Alliance for Education. In 2013, he founded the Amazon legal department’s pro bono initiative, also known as the Amazon Justice League, which encourages and enables Amazon attorneys and legal professionals around the world to donate thousands of hours of pro bono legal work each year.
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