Clarence Otis Jr.

Who is Clarence Otis Jr.?

Mr. Otis, 51, has been Chairman of Darden Restaurants, Inc., a restaurant holding company, since December 2005 and Chief Executive Officer since December 2004. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of Darden Restaurants, Inc. from March 2002 to November 2004, and President of Smokey Bones Barbeque Grill from December 2002 to November 2004. Mr. Otis has been a Director since 2006. Otis's scholastic record at Williams was likewise a distinguished one. He graduated magna cum laude in 1977 with dual majors in economics and political science, receiving the school's Political Science Writing Prize and Phi Beta Kappa recognition in his senior year. Otis moved on to Stanford University Law School in California, earning his law degree in 1980. For four years in the early 1980s, Otis worked in the field of corporate law, specializing in the fields of securities law and mergers and acquisitions. He started out with the firm Donovan Leisure Newton Irvine and moved on to Gordon, Hurwitz, Butowsky, Weitzen, Shalov Wein. From the start he ran with a high-flying crowd; one of his clients was famed financier Carl Icahn. Otis and his wife Jacqueline Bradley were married in 1983 and have raised three children. Bradley later became board director of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.