Damien Atkins is Former Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for The Hershey Company, where he was responsible for leading the corporate secretary, government relations, legal and security functions.
Prior to joining Hershey in August of 2018, he was General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the Panasonic Corporation of North America. At Panasonic, he managed the company’s full litigation portfolio and led global legal teams in several multi-jurisdictional Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and antitrust investigations, lawsuits and claims. He also led a global legal team in the $1 billion acquisition of the Hussmann Corporation in 2016.
Before Panasonic, Damien was Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Corporate and Chief Compliance Officer for AOL, Inc., leading a range of high-profile legal matters for the company, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate and real estate legal matters, including AOL’s spin‐off from Time Warner.
In 1998, Damien began his legal career as a corporate associate at Chadbourne & Parke (now known as Norton Rose).
Damien holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University where he was Senior Class President and a Mellon Scholar, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.