Mailing address
Littauer 362
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Ben Heineman
Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-7305
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: ben_heineman@harvard.edu
Experience
Mr. Heineman is a graduate of Harvard College (1965), Oxford University (1967 -- graduate degree/political science) and Yale Law School (1971). A former Rhodes Scholar, editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, he practiced law in Washington before serving at HEW from 1977-1980, ending his tenure there as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Mr. Heineman was then managing partner of the Washington office of Sidley & Austin, focusing on Supreme Court and test case litigation. He is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency. In 1987, Mr. Heineman became Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of the General Electric Company located in Fairfield, Connecticut. In 2004, he was named GE's Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs. Mr. Heineman is a member of the American Law Institute; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; a member of the Board of Transparency International-USA; a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center; and a member of the Board of Managers and Overseers of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In May 2011, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
While at the Belfer Center, he will research and write on a wide variety of public and private sector issues, including the global anti-corruption movement, corporate citizenship and social responsibility, the changing role of the corporate general counsel and the inside legal department, the corporate response to terrorism, corporate governance, and corporations and public policy.
May 10, 2013
"The Cost of Saving Lives in Bangladesh"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The horrific death of more than 900 Bangladesh garment workers in the collapse of a building, following the death of 112 garment workers in a Bangladesh factory fire five months ago, has led, of course, to the inevitable calls for reform. The immediate question is how to ensure structural soundness of factories after the multi-storied Rana Plaza facility--making garments for as many as 30 international retailers--broke apart, burning, suffocating and crushing its workforce. But broader issues of worker health and safety for Bangladesh's 5,000 garment factories have also come to the fore.
April 26, 2013
"Name the Trade Rep, Mr. President"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review, HBR Blog Network
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In President Obama's second term, the United States has an ambitious and challenging Atlantic and Pacific trade agenda which could significantly alter the architecture of the global economy.
March 26, 2013
"Why We Can All Stop Worrying About Offshoring and Outsourcing"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Labor markets have for the past quarter century been at the center of the globalization disputes under the "off-shoring and out-sourcing" rubric. How many jobs were lost at home to cheap labor abroad? What were conditions for those overseas workers?
AP Images
March 25, 2013
"On DOMA, Real-World Arguments Could Sway the Supreme Court"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
"After the Supreme Court hears oral argument in the two same-sex marriage cases next week, it could issue a momentous ruling that gay marriage is a constitutional right in all 50 states -- or that it is not," writes Ben Heineman.
..."Moderate justices (read: Kennedy) may hesitate to call same-sex marriage a constitutional right. But these briefs written by military and business leaders may give them a more modest way to strike down the Act."
AP Images
March 4, 2013
"From BP to Boeing, Supplier Safety Is the CEO's Problem"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The current front-page sub-contractor controversies surrounding BP's liability for the gulf explosion and Boeing's grounding of its 787 Dreamliner should not obscure an ultimate take-away for corporate leaders: companies must take operational responsibility for ensuring that products and services provided to them by third party suppliers are safe, effective and of high quality.
February 1, 2013
"'Downton Abbey' Is Entertainment, but 'Brideshead Revisited' Was Art"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Downtown Abbey is entertainment. Its illustrious predecessor in television mega-success about the English upper class, Brideshead Revisited, is art. This distinction between entertainment and art helps explain the decline in Downton this year—it is simply not as entertaining. For those, who have a chance to see the Brideshead DVD (of the 30-year-old series) its power as art is undiminished.
January 24, 2013
"The JP Morgan "Whale" Report and the Ghosts of the Financial Crisis"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The apparition of 2008 returns once more. Two recently released JP Morgan Chase (JPM) reports on the causes of the "London Whale" trading losses raise important questions about whether financial service firms can exorcise the spectral issues which were so central to the financial crisis. They read as if JPM and a key headquarters unit — the Chief Investment Office — had not learned a single lesson from the meltdown four years ago. And unfortunately, they suggest that, in our huge, complex financial institutions, major failures of organizational discipline and major losses are likely to recur, despite greater attention to risk management.
whitehouse.gov
January 24, 2013
"What Obama Forgot: Economic Growth Is the Only Way to Social Progress"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In his inaugural speech, the president mentioned the obligations of "We the People" as individual citizens. But what's the role of businesses as corporate citizens?
AP Images
January 15, 2013
"Obama's Chief of Staff Will Be the Most Important Appointment of His Term"
Op-Ed, The Atlantic
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
President Obama will soon make what could be the most important appointment of his second term: his chief of staff.
AP Images
January 10, 2013
"Why Are Some Sectors (Ahem, Finance) So Scandal-Plagued?"
Op-Ed, Harvard Business Review
By Ben Heineman, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
In the past 25 years, the size of settlements, fines and penalties for individual corporations found guilty of wrongdoing has escalated from millions of dollars, to tens of millions, to hundreds of millions, to billions. Think Siemens and widespread bribery — about $2 billion. Or, bigger yet, think BP and the gulf disaster — almost $20 billion to date, with another $20 billion-plus likely in the future.
