SVP, Chief Compliance & Ethics Officer
American Express

Leonard Shen is Senior Vice President– Chief Compliance & Ethics Officer for American Express, based in New York, where he leads a global team of approximately 400 compliance officers. Prior to joining Amex, Leonard was Senior Counsel—Chief Compliance Officer for GE Commercial Finance, a Fortune 20, $5 BB NI division of GE comprising a diversified set of banking, financing, leasing, real estate and other businesses.

A graduate of Harvard College (magna cum laude 1981) and Harvard Law School (cum laude 1984), where he was an editor of the Law Review, Leonard clerked for a year for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In 1985 he became a trial attorney at the US Justice Department and then served as a criminal prosecutor at the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC.

After a stint as a litigator in private practice, Leonard became Deputy Director of the nation’s Superfund Enforcement program at the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1991. He moved on to become the chief counsel for the US Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee, then joined GE in 1995. Leonard came to Commercial Finance as its Chief Compliance Officer in 2003 and joined American Express in 2007.