Kenneth W. Dam is currently a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he served for many years as the Max Pam Professor of American and Foreign Law prior to joining the U.S. Treasury, where he served as Deputy Secretary from 2001 to 2003.
His prior government positions include Deputy Secretary of State (1982-85), Executive Director of the White House Council on Economic Policy (1973), and Program Assistant Director for national security and international affairs at the Office of Management and Budget (1971-73). He has also served over the years as a consultant and an advisor to a number of U.S. government agencies. He received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in 1985 and the Alexander Hamilton Award at the Treasury Department in 2003. Both are the highest awards given by the respective departments.

After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1957, Mr. Dam served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Whittaker (1957-58), an associate with Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York (1958-60), and a law professor at the University of Chicago when not in government from 1960 to 1980. In 1980 he became Provost of the University of Chicago, where he served until being appointed by President Reagan as Deputy Secretary of State in 1982.

Upon leaving the State Department in 1985, he became a corporate vice president for law and external relations of IBM, a position he held until 1992. In 1992, he served on an interim basis as president and chief executive officer of the United Way of America in order to lead an investigation of a highly publicized scandal in the leadership of that organization and to reorganize its staff and governance. Thereafter, he rejoined the University of Chicago Law School faculty, where in recent years he has taught courses on international finance, international economic policy, and intellectual property law.

Mr. Dam is a well-known arbitrator in complex litigation. From 1996 to 2001 he served as System Arbitrator under the collective bargaining agreement between the National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association. He has served as an international arbitrator, and is currently serving as an arbitrator under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA treaty.

He has served on the board of a number of public policy institutions, including the Council on Foreign Relations (New York), the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and the Brookings Institution. He was co-chairman of the Aspen Strategy Group from 1991 to 2001 and was, during 1999 and 2000, chairman of the German-American Academic Council. He served from 1987 to 2001 as a member of the board of Alcoa.

Among his many publications are the following books: The Rules of the Global Game: A New Look at US International Economic Playmaking (2001); Economic Policy Beyond the Headlines (with George P. Shultz) (2d ed. 1998); The Rules of the Game: Reform and Evolution in the International Monetary System (1982); Oil Resources: Who Gets What How? (1976); and The GATT: Law and International Economic Organization (1970).

He received his law degree from the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas.