Brackett B. Denniston III

Who is Brackett B. Denniston III?

Brackett B. Denniston III is senior vice president and general counsel of GE, a role he has held since 2004. Responsible for the GE legal organization worldwide and for all GE legal operations, Mr. Denniston reports directly to GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. He is a member of GE's Corporate Executive Council and GE Capital's Board of Directors. He is also chair of the company's Policy Compliance Review Board. Mr. Denniston joined GE as vice president and senior counsel for Litigation and Legal Policy in September 1996. From 1993 to 1996 Mr. Denniston served as chief legal counsel to Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld. His responsibilities included judicial selection, litigation, criminal justice issues and legislation. Mr. Denniston was an associate and later a partner at Goodwin, Procter and Hoar in Boston, where he specialized in complex civil litigation, securities matters and white-collar crime. He represented parties in cases involving insider trading, pharmaceutical prosecutions, securities fraud and banking cases. He was a member of the firm's Executive Committee and numerous other firm committees. From 1982 to 1986 Mr. Denniston served in the U.S. Attorney's Office as Chief of the Major Frauds Unit, where he was responsible for white-collar crime prosecutions. A member of the Attorney General's White Collar Crime Operations Committee, he was awarded the Director's Award for Superior Performance by the Department of Justice for his role in more than 100 successful prosecutions. Mr. Denniston served as a law clerk to the Honorable Herbert Y. Choy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1973-74. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Kenyon College and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Active in civic and charitable pursuits, Mr. Denniston is a trustee and secretary of Kenyon College, a former chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals of Duxbury, Massachusetts, a chair and trustee of the New England Legal Foundation, and a member of the Board of the American Arbitration Association and the Pro Bono Partnership. Mr. Denniston and his wife Kathleen have three children, Alexandra, Brackett and Elizabeth.