Sarah Dodds-Brown is a strategic business partner and enterprise thinker who effectively anticipates challenges and thoughtfully influences change and evolution. Over the course of her career at American Express, Sarah has been instrumental in redefining the culture and expanding the engagement of the legal function, and she currently serves as Executive Vice President & Deputy General Counsel.
In her role, Sarah focuses on ways to enhance the management of legal risk and the operation of the legal department and serves as a member of the company’s enterprise risk management committee. Her team is located across multiple markets and operates with a global outlook providing legal expertise and advice across a range of subject matter and regulatory areas, including digital transactions, technology, intellectual property, antitrust, bank regulatory, advertising and marketing, and privacy and data law, and leading the support for many strategic and cross-functional initiatives.
Prior to leading GES, Sarah served as the Executive Vice President & Managing Counsel of the U.S. Business Legal Group, a team of over 100 legal professionals which provide legal and regulatory support for the company’s U.S. Consumer, Commercial and Global Merchant and Network Services businesses. In 2019, these business divisions generated over $29B in revenue for American Express.
Sarah has served as an independent director on the Board of Directors of Party City Holdco, Inc. (NYSE: PRTY) and as a member of its Audit Committee since 2020. She has also been active with educational and civic organizations since the beginning of her career. She was elected and served as a “Young Trustee” on the Duke University Board of Trustees following her undergraduate studies and went on to subsequently serve two terms on the Board of Advisors for Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Sarah has served as a member of the Planning Board of the City of New Rochelle since 2013. She took over as Chair in 2016 as the City implemented a novel, fast-track zoning process and use of generic environmental reviews to spark an unprecedented redevelopment initiative which has resulted in over 31 projects being approved through the City’s planning process. Sarah is also a member of the Board of Directors for DirectWomen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the representation of women lawyers on corporate boards, the Board of Trustees of Rye Country Day School in Rye, NY, and the Board of Trustees of the WNET Group, a preeminent public media producer presenting and distributing content, programming and experiences for lifelong learners locally in the NY and NJ area and nationwide.
Prior to joining American Express, Sarah was an M&A and private equity lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York. She is a graduate of Duke University and Columbia University School of Law. She currently resides in New Rochelle, NY with her husband and three children.