| | Key ContactEric Biel, Managing Director, Corporate Responsibility Office: Washington DC
Phone: 202-530-4559
Fax: 202-530-4500
Email address: Eric.Biel@bm.com
Eric Biel joined Burson-Marsteller in July 2006 as Managing Director for Corporate Responsibility, based in Washington, DC, advising clients on a range of corporate responsibility policy issues covering human rights, labor rights, the environment and sustainable development, reporting and transparency initiatives, and related areas. His work includes policy development and implementation, risk assessment, strategic engagement with different stakeholders, and analyzing compliance with labor and environmental standards.
Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, Eric was Deputy Washington Director and Senior Counsel of Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), where his policy and legal work covered all program areas, including business and human rights, as well as strategic planning and other management issues. While at Human Rights First, Eric also developed and taught a course on “Business and Human Rights in the Global Economy” at Johns Hopkins University.
From 2000 to 2003, Eric was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Fontheim International, a Washington consulting and law practice, where he represented clients on international trade, corporate responsibility, and labor standards matters, and also handled the firm’s legal compliance work. Eric served in senior positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce from 1997-2000, including Deputy Under Secretary for Trade Policy, Counselor to Secretary William Daley, and Acting Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning. His responsibilities there included Permanent Normal Trade Relations for China, trade with Africa, linkages between trade and labor and environmental policies, and the Department’s strategic planning process.
From 1995-97, Eric was Director of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, a bipartisan body chaired by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that studied and made recommendations on classification, declassification, and other security issues. From 1990-95, he was International Trade Counsel with the Senate Finance Committee, where he advised Chairmen Bentsen and Moynihan and drafted legislation on a wide range of matters. From 1985-90, he was an attorney in private practice in Washington with Mayer, Brown & Platt and Arnold & Porter.
Eric speaks and writes regularly on corporate responsibility, human rights, and economic policy issues. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of Human Rights First’s Washington Advisory Council, and is active in other professional and alumni organizations. Eric received his undergraduate degree in history from Johns Hopkins University and joint degrees in law from Yale Law School and public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. He is married to Dana Rosenfeld, counsel to the law firm of Bryan Cave and formerly Assistant Director in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and enjoys coaching his two sons, David (15) and Joshua (13), in baseball and basketball. He resides in Bethesda, Maryland. |