Wendell L. Willkie II
Co-Chair, Freedom House Board of Trustees
Willkie is currently adjunct professor of law at New York University, as well as an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, following more than twenty years as the general counsel and a member of the executive leadership of a major, multinational manufacturing company. Willkie previously held several senior law and management positions in the US Government. Under President Reagan, he was Associate Counsel to the President, and later was General Counsel and Chief of Staff of the US Department of Education. Under President George H. W. Bush, he was General Counsel and also served as Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Commerce.
Willkie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute. He has served on the Legal Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange and the Emerging Markets Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the boards of the China Institute, the Council of the Americas, and Greenwich Academy. He has also served on the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. A graduate of Harvard College and Oxford University (which he attended as a Rhodes scholar) and the University of Chicago Law School, Willkie began his professional career as a litigator in a prominent New York City law firm.
Willkie is the grandson of Freedom House co-founder Wendell L. Willkie.
