General Counsel Karen West
General Counsel Karen West is responsible for the Department's legal affairs. She also serves as counsel to the State's Economic Investment Committee, responsible for economic incentive grants under the Job Development Investment Grant Program, the Job Maintenance and Capital Development Program, and the Site Infrastructure Development Fund. She provides legal, business, programmatic, communications, and policy advice and analysis on a broad spectrum of Department projects and issues.
West brings over 20 years of domestic and international experience to the Department. She was Assistant General Counsel at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, managing a portfolio of projects at this international development agency charged with mobilizing private investment. She was an officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, senior associate in the Capital Markets Group at the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, and Deputy Director of Financial Sector Legal Reform for the Harvard Institute for International Development, helping the Russian Federation create new financial structures. She currently serves as arbitrator on cases for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the securities industry's largest dispute resolution forum.
West is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and Political Science, summa cum laude, from the School of Public Communications at Boston University.