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= Stephen Williams = Steve Williams (c1948) is a businessman, best known for holding several positions of relevance such as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, among others, in the Unilever company.

Career
Steve Williams was educated at King’s College, where he was President of the Law Society, before taking the solicitor’s exams and joining Slaughter and May (Unilever’s solicitors) as an articled clerk. He stayed with this company after he qualified, specialising in tax planning and then moving into commercial work.

In 1975 he joined the Legal Department of Imperial Chemical Industries PLC.

In 1984 he was transferred to ICI’s company secretary’s department and became one of two Assistant Company Secretaries in 1985. One year later he was appointed Joint Secretary of Unilever PLC and NV, from 1 December of this year. As Joint Secretary, he was responsible for all legal services in the London Head Office and for the International Trademarks Department.

At Unilever, he was also the Chairman of the Unilever House Art Committee, and had an interest in contemporary art. This committee was established around 1987 to ensure the collection was protected and maintained, and to develop it for the benefit of the staff, company, and community. The new committee was given a £50,000 budget to spend over three years from 1988 on buying new work for the collection. The committee also sold paintings and sculptures from the collection to raise funds.

In 1993 he served as General Counsel from 1 June, whilst maintaining his role as Joint Secretary.

As Joint Secretary and General Counsel, Williams addressed the House of Commons’ Select Committee on international development in January 2001. Unilever was one of five companies asked to give evidence to the committee as part of an investigation into corruption and bribery in the developing world. The committee wanted Unilever to share their experiences, and also requested information regarding how the company had developed its Code of Business Principles; this code stated that no bribe should be offered or received by the company, the consequence being dismissal.

In 2002 he was voted top in-house lawyer in the U.K., chosen by a nomination committee drawn from the magazine Management Today and headhunters Spencer Stuart. They put together a dream team of Corporate Executives, and Williams was chosen as Chief Legal Officer.

A year later Williams was appointed Chairman of the Unilever House London Transformation Team. In 2007 he was appointed to role of Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of Unilever and two years after that he was appointed Group Secretary, in addition to serving as General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer. The Corporate Secretaries department became part of the Legal Group and reported to Steve Williams.

In 2010 Steve Williams retired from Unilever. Tonia Lovell was appointed Chief Legal Officer and Group Secretary designate to succeed him.

Steve Williams has also been a member of numerous other organisations, including the Company Law Committee of the Law Society, Companies Committee of the CBI, Royal Society of Arts, RAC, Croda, Arts&amp;Business, and Whitbread Investor Relations. From 1995-2004, he was a nonexecutive director of Bunzl PLC, and from 2004 served on the board of Arriva PLC.