Nicole Lamb-Hale is Vice President and General Counsel for Cummins. Leveraging her extensive executive level experience and service in the private and public sectors, Nicole is responsible for worldwide legal matters and oversees a global team of attorneys, paralegals and other professionals.
Prior to joining Cummins, Nicole was a Managing Director at Kroll, a global governance, risk and transparency consultancy, the head of its Washington, DC office and a Fellow of the Kroll Institute, a think tank associated with the firm. Before Kroll, Nicole was a Senior Vice President of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm.
Nicole was nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Services in the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). In this role, she was the Chief Executive Officer of the industry-facing unit of ITA, serving as the liaison between U.S. industry and the federal government with respect to access to international markets and U.S. policies impacting the competitiveness of U.S. exports. In addition, she regularly led business delegations on international trade and trade policy missions, during which she negotiated with senior foreign government officials on the elimination of regulatory and legal impediments to trade to create policy environments conducive to free trade and to mitigate market access barriers to U.S. exports.
Before serving as Assistant Secretary, Nicole served, by presidential appointment, as the Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this role, she was the Chief Operating Officer of the Office of General Counsel, where, among other duties, she assisted the General Counsel as the legal advisor to the Secretary of Commerce.
Prior to her government service, Nicole practiced law as an equity partner in two international law firms where she specialized in business restructuring and public finance. After practicing with Dykema Gossett PLLC, where she served as the chair of the bankruptcy practice and as hiring partner, Nicole joined the law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP where, in addition to serving her clients, she served as the managing partner of the firm’s Detroit office.
Nicole serves as an independent director on the boards of Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE: FRT) and Kroll. She also serves on the board of trustees of the Center for International Private Enterprise, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce affiliate, and on the advisory board of the American Leadership Initiative. Nicole is a past holder of the Gwendolyn and Colby King Endowed Chair for Public Policy at Howard University in Washington, DC.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Nicole earned an A.B. with high honors in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.