Ambassador Philip Lader

Philip Lader served as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Chairman of WPP plc (including J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam and other advertising/media companies with 205,000 people in 114 countries), and a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet.

His other government roles included White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of the Office of Management & Budget, and Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Previously, he was president of the company managing the U.S.’ then-largest non-governmental landholdings and of Sea Pines Company as well as universities In South Carolina and Australia. He also was president of Business Executives for National Security.

Lead Director of AMC Entertainment, Trustee Emeritus (and former Vice Chairman) of RAND Corporation, and formerly a national law firm partner, Ambassador Lader also serves, or has served, on the boards of Lloyds of London, Marathon Oil, AES, Songbird (London’s Canary Wharf), Rusal and several banks, privately-held technology companies and universities as well as the American Red Cross, British Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American History, Atlantic Council, Salzburg Global Seminar, Spain’s Bankinter Foundation and St. Paul’s Cathedral Foundation.

Educated at Duke, The University of Michigan, Oxford and Harvard Law School, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by 14 universities and is an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University’s Pembroke College, London Business School and Middle Temple (British Inns of Court). He was the recipient of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures & Commerce’s 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal for his contributions to trans-Atlantic relations and Rotary International’s 2007 Global Service Award.