Nishat Ruiter is General Counsel of TED conferences, a nonprofit organization that believes passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives, and, ultimately, the world. Through creativity, and deep respect for TED’s mission, Nishat’s work is centered on ensuring that TED’s legal requirements are met through a combination of practical and creative solutions that meets its needs, while still retaining the authentic TED voice across every area where possible. She manages the legal issues with respect to TED’s licensing, partnerships, TM, brand protection, TED’s code of conduct, data privacy, copyright, transactions, and all corporate legal matters. Prior to TED, she worked for over 15 years as in house counsel, and in private practice including working as Associate General Counsel at CA Technologies, a Fortune 500 software technology company in a variety of roles including managing the North American legal department of 25 lawyers and contract managers, managing all integration issues for 7 companies as lead counsel and advising on regulatory compliance issues for government sales, marketing, advertising and social media.
Nishat serves as a member of the Board for International School Services, a not for profit providing international schools and teachers global and education support, including diversity and leadership frameworks, on the editorial board of the London-based International In-house Counsel Journal and on the Board of The Choose Organization, Inc. aiming to provide educators, K-12 students and communities effective tools to engage in conversations about race. Nishat holds a BA in Political Science from Rutgers University and a JD from Widener Law School.