Jeff Bleich
Ambassador Jeff Bleich is the Chair of the Board of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.. He formerly served as CEO of Dentons Diplomatic Consultants, a commercial intelligence and diplomatic consulting group, as well as a Partner at Dentons. He has over two decades experience in resolving complex domestic and international disputes. He is also the Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, a Professor at the Jeff Bleich Centre for the U.S. Alliance in Digital Technology, Security, and Governance at Flinders University. He serves as a member of the Board of Governors of the East West Center. He is a Trustee of Amherst College. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Australia from 2009 to 2013, and as Special Counsel to President Obama in the White House during the first year of the Administration. For his federal service, Ambassador Bleich has received numerous awards, including the highest civilian honors awarded by the United States Navy and the Director of National Intelligence. In 2013, he received the State Department's Sue M. Cobb award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service.
As an attorney, Ambassador Bleich has handled over 300 matters, specializing in complex litigation. He has been honored as California Lawyer Attorney of the Year, and regularly listed among the Daily Journal's 100 most influential attorneys in California, in the LawDragon's top 500, and in America's Best Lawyers as a top "Bet the Company" lawyer.
Outside his professional practice, Ambassador Bleich served as the Chair of the California State University Board of Trustees, President of the California State Bar, President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and Chair of the ABA’s Amicus Curiae Committee, as well as other organizations.
Ambassador Bleich has taught several courses at UC Berkeley School of Law, and publishes extensively. He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College, an M.P.P from Harvard with highest honors, a J.D. from the Univ. of California, Berkeley with highest honors, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from S.F. State University.
Ambassador Bleich clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Howard Holtzmann of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague.
Ambassador Bleich serves on the boards or advisory boards of several privately held cyber-security companies. He has been elected as a life member to both the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.
