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Sheila C. Cheston is Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, responsible for all legal matters associated with BAE Systems’ U.S.-based operating groups which collectively employ some 45,000 employees in the U.S., U.K., Sweden and South Africa and generate annual sales in excess of $10 billion. She is also responsible for the Company’s contracts, ethics, export control and security functions. She is a member of the U.S. Board of Directors.
Cheston brings more than 15 years of extensive experience with the Department of Defense. She has held key legal positions in the Government including General Counsel of the United States Air Force and Special Associate Counsel to the President of the United States.
Prior to her current position, Cheston was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where she was chair of the firm’s International Aviation, Defense and Aerospace Group.
Cheston served as General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force from March 1995 to October 1998. As the chief legal officer of the Department of the Air Force, she oversaw approximately 1,500 lawyers stationed world-wide.
From April to September 1994, Cheston was Special Associate Counsel to President Clinton.
Ms. Cheston is a graduate of Dartmouth College (B.A. 1980) and Columbia University School of Law (J.D. 1984). She clerked for The Honorable William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Cheston was an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center, where she taught International Civil Litigation. She is on the Board of Trustees of Freedom from Hunger, a Fellow of the American Bar and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Cheston served as General Counsel of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission from April to September 1993. | 