Katherine McG. Sullivan
General Counsel
Citigroup Inc.
Revenue: $690 billion
Employees: 174,900
As general counsel of Citigroup’s global consumer businesses, Kate Sullivan heads a legal team of attorneys located throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. The global consumer group businesses include Citibank, Travelers Life and Annuity, Travelers Property Casualty Company, Commercial Credit Corporation, Primerica Financial Services Company, Citi Mortgage, Inc. and Citi Global Credit Card.
Citigroup was formed in October 1998 by the merger of Travelers Group and Citicorp. It is the largest domestic financial services company and does business in all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries.
Sullivan also co-founded and is on the board of directors of Lawyers for Children America, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to children in need. She has also been a member of the New York Stock Exchange Individual Investors Committee, chairwoman of the Center for Community Interest, member of the board of directors of the American Bar Endowment and the American Corporate Counsel Association.
Sullivan graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, and she serves on the Law Center’s corporate council advisory committee. She has written on a variety of topics including corporate grievance, law department management and on the advancement of women in the legal profession. She is a third-generation Irish American — her mother’s family is from Mayo and her father’s from Cork. She is married with one child.
Anne Sweeney
President, Disney/ABC Cable Networks
President, Disney Channel
Subscribers: 56 million (Disney);
14 million (Toon Disney)
Employees: Approx. 500
As president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks, Anne Sweeney is responsible for nonsports cable programming for The Wait Disney Company and its ABC subsidiary. She oversees the operation of Disney Channel and Toon Disney, where she retains the title of president, and ABC’s interests in Lifetime, A&E Television Network, The History Channel and E! Entertainment Television.
In addition, Sweeney oversees the creation and management of ABC’s Saturday morning children’s programming schedule and is in charge of developing future television programming for cable and other platforms.
Prior to assuming this position in 1998, Sweeney was president of Disney Channel and executive vice president of Disney/ABC Cable Networks since February 1996. Under her leadership, Disney Channel has nearly tripled its subscriber base from 15 million to nearly 45 million homes with its mix of family entertainment, original series, movies and specials. She also oversaw the successful launch of Toon Disney, the popular all-animation cable channel.
Sweeney’s career history is characterized by her love of children and television. She started out as an intern at Children’s Television Workshop, the company that produces Sesame Street and later turned down a job at ABC Radio to pursue a Master’s of Education at Harvard University.
On her return to New York she spent 12 years at Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, where she was most recently senior vice president of program enterprises. In 1993, she joined FX Networks, Inc. as chairman and chief executive officer. During her tenure there she oversaw the launch of two cable networks: FX, an entertainment network and FXM: Movies from Fox.
Active in cable industry affairs, Sweeney is a founding member of Women in Cable and was named the organization’s executive of the year in 1994 and Woman of the Year in 1997. She is also a board member of the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE), the Walter Kaitz Foundation and is honorary chair of Cable Positive. She was also the recipient of the 1995 STAR Award from American Women in Radio and Television.
The descendant of Irish immigrants from Counties Meath, Kerry and Mayo, Sweeney continually draws inspiration from the “amazing courage” of her ancestors who left Ireland during the Famine to start new lives in a new country, and acknowledges her family’s keen pride in their Irish heritage. She and her husband, Philip Miller, have two children and reside in Los Angeles.
William J. Sweeney
Executive Vice President, Corrugated Products
Packaging Corporation of America
Revenue: $1.7 billion
Employees: 7,700
As executive vice president, William Sweeney has total profit and loss responsibility for Packaging Corporation of America’s corrugated products group and containerboard sales organization which includes a network of 67 corrugated products profit centers.
Prior to his appointment with PCA, he was executive vice president of Tenneco Packaging from 1990 to 1999. Tenneco Packaging sold its containerboard business to Madison Dearborn Partners in 1999 and the new company was named Packaging Corporation of America.
Sweeney began his career in 1967, after earning a liberal arts degree from Harpur College at the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Denver. His first position was as general manager with Boise Cascade.
Sweeney is the past chairman of the Fibre Box Association (FBA) and the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF). He is a first-generation Irish American — his parents are both from Clonmel, County Tipperary. Sweeney is married with three children.
Edward J. Trainor
President &CEO
Standex International Corporation
Revenue: $640 million
Employees: 5,700
As president and chief executive officer of Standex International, Edward J. (Ted) Trainor leads a global, multi-industry company that manufactures and markets products through 17 business units and 92 facilities in 14 countries.
Operating in three broad business segments — food service, consumer products and industrial products — Standex’s strategy is to invest in businesses that generate solid revenues and earning streams, and then to reinvest for long-term growth. Standex has a subsidiary, Procon Pumps, in Mountmellick, Ireland.
Trainor joined Standex in 1984 as vice president and general manager of their National Metal Industries. He was appointed vice president of Standex International in 1992, president and COO in 1994, and then president and CEO in 1995. Prior to joining Standex he served as president of Bastian Company. He began his career in 1966 as a senior engineer for Eastman Kodak.
From 1957-’61, Trainor served with the U.S. Air Force before earning a B.S. in Engineering from Boston University. He went on to earn an M.S. in Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1974 and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
Trainor is a second-generation Irish American, with Irish grandparents on both sides of his family. His mother’s family come from County Galway and his father’s from County Down. Trainor himself is very proud of the Irish citizenship he obtained in 1998.♦
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