Philip Lader

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Philip Lader, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) from 1997 to 2001, is chairman of WPP Group plc, the global media/communications services company with 97,000 people in 2,000 offices in 106 countries.

He is a Senior Adviser to Morgan Stanley , a member of the boards of Lloyd's of London, Marathon Oil, AES, Rusal (formerly Russian Aluminum) and RAND Corporations, WPP and Songbird Estates plc (Canary Wharf), the Smithsonian Museum of American History, St. Paul's Cathedral Foundation, and the Salzburg Seminar.

Confirmed three times by the U.S. Senate without dissent, he was a member of President Clinton's Cabinet as Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President, and Deputy Director for Management of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

He formerly was executive vice president of the late Sir James Goldsmith's U.S. holdings (including America's then-largest private landholdings, sixth-largest forest products company, largest computer supplies supplier and oil & gas interests) and president of Sea Pines Company, the developer/operator of award-winning recreation communities (e.g., Hilton Head Island, Amelia Island, Kiawah Island). He was also president (and vice-chancellor) of Australia's first private university, Bond University, and Winthrop University, in his home state of South Carolina, where he was a candidate for governor in 1986.

He is an Honorary Fellow of London Business School and Oxford University's Pembroke College, a member of the Board of Visitors of Harvard Law School and Duke University's Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and previously was a trustee of the British Museum, a director of the American Red Cross, and chairman of the Royal Academy of Arts American Trust. He was chairman of the South Carolina Small & Minority Business Council, a trustee of South Carolina State Colleges, and a director of the South Carolina Jobs/Economic Development Authority and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. In 1981, he founded, and continues to host, Renaissance Weekends, the family retreats that seek to build bridges between innovative leaders from diverse fields.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University, received the M.A. in History from The University of Michigan, completed graduate law studies at Oxford University, and received the J.D. from Harvard Law School. He was the West Professor of International Studies at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, and has been awarded honorary doctorates by 14 universities. The Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce awarded him the 2001 Benjamin Franklin Medal for his contributions to trans-Atlantic relations.

He and his wife, Linda LeSourd Lader, the president of the Renaissance Institute and a Fellow at Yale University's Center for Faith & Culture, are the parents of two daughters, Mary-Catherine Lader and Whitaker Lader, and their permanent residence is Charleston, South Carolina.