Preeta Bansal is a senior global executive and lawyer whose career has been at the intersection of law, public policy, government, academia and global business. Bansal served as general counsel and senior policy advisor to Barack Obama in the White House (Office of Management and Budget). She is a Lecturer at the MIT Media Lab and a Senior Advisor at MIT’s Laboratory for Social Machines.

Bansal is Co-Founder and President of Social Emergence Corporation, a not-for-profit, social-benefit organization focused on empowering human networks and community relationships at the base of global socio-economic pyramid.

Previously, Bansal has served as a global general counsel for HSBC Holdings, plc, in London; partner and practice chair of leading international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York City; Solicitor General of the State of New York; and Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal government human rights commission focused on religious freedom and interfaith cooperation.

She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard-Radcliffe College and a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (1990-1991). Her present work relates to empowering communities and human networks through direct, self-regulating peer-to-peer and citizen-to-citizen engagement (facilitated by new technologies, emerging legal forms and global ethical frameworks). She was a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.