Tom McCoy has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in law and business. For 16 years he served as the Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chief Administrative Officer of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., a global semiconductor company headquartered in Silicon Valley. In that capacity, he led a number of business organizations as well as the law department). After retiring from AMD, he served as the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of CH2M Hill, a Denver-based global infrastructure engineering, consulting and construction firm (recently acquired by Jacobs Engineering). Tom spent the first half of his career as a partner of O’Melveny & Myers as a business trial lawyer in Los Angeles, and between his general counsel stints he chaired O’Melveny’s strategy and crisis management practice in Washington, D.C.
Tom currently serves on boards of directors, coaches executives and executive teams, and is a commentator on corporate governance issues. He has been a public speaker on ethical leadership principles and other topics all over the world , including five times at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is best known for his “Lighthouses of Leadership” presentations. His leadership has been the study of business schools and business leadership authors, including Fortune Magazine, Intel’s Worst Nightmare (August 2006); Hope, How Triumphant Leaders Create the Future (A. Razeghi, 2006); and Triple Crown Leadership – Building Ethical, Enduring and Excellent Organizations (Vanourek and Vanourek, 2010) (see a transcript of the authors’ interview of Tom at ).
Tom earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University, and his law degree from the University of Southern California. He clerked on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals following law school. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Juvenile Law Center, the nation’s preeminent public interest law and policy firm advocating for the legal and social justice of children, and on the board of directors of the Appleseed Network, a national network of public interest legal offices around the country addressing legal and social justice for the poor and disadvantaged. Tom is a former board member of the Markula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University, and the Western Center of Law and Poverty in Los Angeles. Tom and his family divide their time between homes in Washington, D.C. and Estes Park, Colorado.