Philip Lader

Philip Lader, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (United Kingdom, 1997-2001), is chairman of WPP Group plc, the global media and communications services firm and largest worldwide media buyer (which includes J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam, Ogilvy & Mather, Grey Global, and such Washington-based public affairs companies as Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton, with 110,000 people and 2,000 offices in 106 countries.

As a Senior Adviser to Morgan Stanley, he serves on the investment committees of its global real estate and infrastructure funds, as well as the boards of several of its private equity portfolio companies (including Songbird plc-Canary Wharf). He is also a director of Lloyd's of London (the international insurance market), a member of the corporate boards of Marathon Oil, UC Rusal (the world's largest aluminum producer), and AES (the global power company), and a trustee of RAND Corporation, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, The Atlantic Council, and the Salzburg Global Seminar.

In 1981 he and his wife, Linda LeSourd Lader, founded Renaissance Weekends, the non-partisan family retreats that seek to build bridges between innovative leaders from diverse fields. They continue to host four Renaissance Weekends each year around the U.S.

Education and personal life

Lader graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University, received the M.A. in History from the University of Michigan, completed graduate law studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University, and received the J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was the West Professor of International Studies at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, and was chairman of the Board of Visitors of Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

He is married to Linda LeSourd Lader. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, a Fellow at its Center for Faith & Culture, and president of the Renaissance Institute, she assisted President Clinton in his outreach to the nation's communities of faith and, prior to ordination in the Presbyterian Church, is engaged in a Washington, D.C., ministry. She has served on the boards of Habitat for Humanity International, Communities in Schools, International Justice Mission, Harvard University's Center for the Study of Values in Public Life, Spoleto Festival USA, and numerous education and religious groups. Ambassador and Mrs. Lader's two daughters, Mary-Catherine Lader and Whitaker Lader, are, respectively, a renewable energy investment analyst with Goldman Sachs and a student at Brown University. Their permanent residence is Charleston, South Carolina.

Career

Confirmed by the U.S. Senate three times without dissent, Lader served in President Clinton's Cabinet while Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and formerly was White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President, as well as Deputy Director of the Office of Management & Budget. Before entering government service, he was executive vice president of Sir James Goldsmith's U.S. holdings - which included America's then-largest private landholdings, sixth-largest forest products company, largest computer supplies supplier, and oil and gas interests - and president of Sea Pines Company, the developer/operator of award-winning recreation communities including Hilton Head Island.

Lader was the president of South Carolina's Winthrop University, 1983-85 and, in 1986, was a candidate for Governor of South Carolina. He served as president and vice-chancellor of Australia's first private university, Bond University, 1991-1993. [Bond University (2008). [http://www.bond.edu.au/about/bond/governance/vc.html Vice-Chancellor & President] . Retrieved April 28, 2008.]

In addition to his role as chairman of WPP Group and a senior adviser to Morgan Stanley, Lader is a partner at Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, South Carolina's oldest and largest law firm, with 400 lawyers throughout the Carolinas, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. After law school, he was a law clerk to the late Judge Paul Roney, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (formerly Fifth Circuit).

Lader is an Honorary Fellow of London Business School and Oxford University's Pembroke College, an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple (British Inns of Court), a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, Harvard Law School's Visiting Committee, Yale Divinity School's Board of Visitors, and Columbia University's International Advisory Board. He previously was a trustee of the British Museum and St. Paul's Cathedral Foundation, a director of the American Red Cross, president of Business Executives for National Security, and chairman of the Royal Academy of Arts American Trust. In South Carolina, he is a trustee of Middleton Place Foundation and Liberty Fellows and was chairman of the South Carolina Small & Minority Business Council, a trustee of South Carolina State Colleges, and a director of the South Carolina Jobs/Economic Development Authority and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

Honours

Lader has been awarded honorary doctorates by 14 universities. The Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce awarded him the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal for his contributions to trans-Atlantic relations, and he received the Rotary International Foundation's 2007 Global Service to Humanity Award.

References

External links

* [http://www.americanambassadors.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Members.view&memberid=123 Council of American Ambassadors biography]
* [http://www.nelsonmullins.com/lawyers/nelson-mullins-attorney-bio.cfm?id=307 Nelson Mullins law firm biography]
* [http://www.renaissanceweekend.org/ Renaissance Weekend]