Philip Lader

Philip Lader is a former U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James and former non-executive chairman of WPP Group, the world’s largest multinational advertising and public relations firm by profit, comprised of Grey Global Group, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, JWT, Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, GroupM, Cohn & Wolfe and The Brand Union. They employ more than 120,000 people and have offices in 106 countries.

A partner in one of his home state’s oldest and largest law firms, Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough, his South Carolina office served in President Clinton’s cabinet, and Lader was Deputy Chief of Staff in the White House, Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of the Office of the President for Management and Budget, and Small Business Administrator.

Prior to entering government service, he had been Chairman of the Sea Pines Company and Executive Vice President of Sir James Goldsmith’s U.S. holding company. He is an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, the University of Oxford and London Business School, a Middle Temple Bencher Honorary Fellow, a Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Advisory Board of Harvard Law School, Yale Divinity School, Columbia University, and the Duke University Institute for Public Policy. He was previously also President of Enterprise Executives for National Security, director of the American Red Cross and several banks, and a candidate for governor of South Carolina in 1986.

He received his training at Duke University (Phi Beta Kappa), the University of Michigan (MA, History), Harvard Law School (JD) and a Postgraduate Degree in Law from the University of Oxford. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates by 14 universities. The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce awarded him its 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal for his contributions to transatlantic relations.