Craig Donaldson

Craig Donaldson is a Managing Director on the Southeast In-House Counsel team and he is based in Charleston, SC. Craig helps law departments succeed. He partners with clients to assess their needs; identify top legal, compliance, and leadership talent; find efficiencies; and improve performance and the delivery of services.

With his extensive C-suite experience leading business divisions, law departments, and ethics and compliance teams across the U.S. and internationally, Craig is uniquely positioned to add value. His expertise spans a number of industries, including chemical, biotechnology, food and beverage, manufacturing, financial, healthcare and automotive. He is also well-versed in international affairs having had assignments in the Netherlands, Hungary and Austria. In addition, he has had significant dealings across Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

Craig and his wife, Cheryl, reside in Charleston, SC, and they have three young adult sons. In his free time, Craig enjoys reading, biking, pickleball and all that Charleston has to offer. Craig’s wife is a clinical psychologist and founded Helping Families Flourish, LLC. She counsels families and advises schools on character development and wellness programs. Craig and Cheryl met in Vienna, Austria, while they were both working for the non-profit, Young Life.

Craig has had an illustrious career, which began as a corporate and litigation associate at Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Since then, Craig has led legal departments in the U.S. and overseas, designed and launched ethics and compliance programs, and overseen global business units.

Most recently, Craig has helped public and private corporations with their ethics and compliance initiatives. As vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer for DST Systems, Inc., he launched DST’s inaugural global ethics and compliance program. Similarly, he did the same as head of compliance and ethics for Volvo Cars Americas.

Prior to his focus on compliance and ethics, Craig was divisional counsel based in Amsterdam for JohnsonDiversey, Inc. with legal responsibility for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Later, he moved back to the States to be divisional counsel for Tate & Lyle Americas overseeing the law department for North and South Americas.

While at Tate & Lyle, Craig was promoted to the business side and successfully led two substantial business divisions. He was general manager of the Global Acidulants Division with P&L responsibility, which included manufacturing facilities in the U.S., Brazil and Colombia. Craig was also vice president of Splenda Sucralose and tasked with the responsibility to ensure the success of this iconic international brand.

Having spent significant time in the C-suite, Craig has valuable first-hand experience with executive management teams and boards of directors as well as with the many issues they face.