Ambassador Philip Lader

Philip Lader — the former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s and Chairman of WPP plc (including J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, Grey Global, Burson-Marsteller, Kantar, and Hill & Knowlton, with 205,000 people in 3,000+ offices in 114 countries) — is a Senior Adviser to Morgan Stanley, Lead Director of AMC Entertainment, and a trustee of RAND Corporation and several foundations.

Ambassador Lader served in President Clinton’s Cabinet while Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and was White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Assistant to the President, and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Previously, he was president of the company managing the U.S.’ largest privately-held landholdings and of Sea Pines Company as well as universities in South Carolina and Australia.

An Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford University, and London Business School, an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple (Inns of Court), and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he serves, or has served, on the boards of Lloyds of London, the American Red Cross, British Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American History, Atlantic Council, and Salzburg Seminar, Marathon Oil, AES, Minerva, Duck Creek Technologies, and Rusal Corporations, as well as St. Paul’s Cathedral and several banks and universities. He has also been a partner in the Nelson Mullins law firm and President of Business Executives for National Security.

His education includes Duke University, the University of Michigan, Oxford University, and Harvard Law School; and he has been awarded honorary doctorates by 14 universities, Rotary International's 2007 Global Service to Humanity Award, and the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures & Commerce's 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal.