William Plapinger

Bill Plapinger is Senior Counsel (and previously was a partner for almost three decades) at the global law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and has dedicated most of his time since 2012 to the not-for-profit sector, primarily education, as well as conservation and the arts.

Plapinger’s practice at Sullivan & Cromwell focused on corporate finance and M&A in a wide variety of industries in more than 30 countries, with particular emphasis on large, complex, financial transactions, many of which were the first, largest or most significant of their kind. He was resident in the firm’s London office for more than 25 years, before and after which he was resident in its New York office. He had both firm-wide and regional management responsibilities, including as managing partner of the London office, the firm’s largest branch office, coordinator of the firm’s four European offices, and a member of the firm’s Managing Partners Committee. Plapinger has been named repeatedly by more than a dozen U.S. and international publications as, variously, one of the world’s leading IPO, equity and debt capital markets, privatization and M&A lawyers.

He has extensive experience in not-for-profit education, where he is a member of the national board of directors of The Posse Foundation (and chairs its Governance Committee and is a member of the Executive Committee), a member of the board of directors of Global Citizen Year, and a director of The Fulbright U.S.-U.K. Foundation. He was the chair of the board of trustees of Vassar College for 12 years (and prior to that was a trustee for another 10 years), was a Commissioner on the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission (having been appointed by the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain to two three-year terms), and was a member of the board of trustees of the American School in London for 16 years (and subsequently, the board of directors of the American School in London Foundation). He was also a member of the board of directors of the Conference of Board Chairs of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges, and the President’s Commission of Wheaton College (Norton, MA). He has spent the last several years working with partners on an innovative market-based venture to provide affordable financing to African students at the world’s leading universities.

In the conservation sector, he is a member of the board of directors of Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, the largest private land trust on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, and in the arts sector, he is a member of the board of trustees of the Sundance Institute, and was a co-founder and member of the board of directors of the American Friends of the British Museum.

Plapinger was a Fellow in 2013, and a Senior Fellow in 2014, in the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University, a joint program of five graduate schools dedicated to preparing experienced leaders to address national and global social problems.

He grew up in Washington, D.C., where he attended public schools, and is a graduate of Vassar College, earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law, and also attended Westfield College, University of London. He and his wife of almost 40 years, Cassie Murray, split their time between Martha’s Vineyard and New York City, and have three grown children--two in the entertainment industry and one in management consulting.