Leadership

Susan E. Bennett, Chief Legal Officer, oversees the company’s global corporate legal, compliance, and privacy functions, serves as secretary to the Board of Directors, and championed the company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program. She has extensive global experience in corporate governance, commercial transactions, employment, intellectual property, litigation management, mergers and acquisitions, distribution, and risk management. 

Previously, Bennett served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary for Culligan International Company, a private equity-owned water treatment business. Under her leadership, Bennett guided Culligan through five ownership changes and worked closely with two different private equity owners. 

Prior to joining Culligan, Bennett was Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary of the Consumer Products Division of United States Filter Corporation, where she was responsible for mergers and acquisitions and consumer finance. 

Earlier in her career, Bennett served as external counsel at Crawford, Sullivan, Read, Roemerman & Brady P.C. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a law firm AV rated by Martindale Hubbell’s peer review rating system, where she was involved in employment, insurance coverage, insurance defense, and products and tort liability matters. 

Bennett earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa and was an Undergraduate Scholar Assistant, awarded to the top 1% of students. She earned her Juris Doctor degree with High Distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law, where she served as associate editor of the Iowa Law Review and won the American Jurisprudence Award for Commercial Transactions. Today, she serves as Chair of the Iowa Alumni Leadership Council and as a member of the Development and Alumni Engagement Committee of the UICA Board of Directors. She was honored with a “Women of Influence” award by the Chicago Business Journal and Bizwomen in 2019. 

Bennett and her husband live in Chicago with their three standard poodles. Their grown children live nearby.