John Page
PRESIDENT

John E. Page is Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Golden State Foods, Corp., a privately held $5 Billion food processing and Distribution company to the Quick Service and Casual Dining Food Service industries. With over 3,000 employees worldwide, GSF is one of the largest diversified suppliers to the foodservice industry, servicing more than 20,000 restaurants from four continents. The Company also runs the GSF Foundation for kids, a non-profit organization to help children and families in need. John has over 20 years of practicing as an attorney both as outside and in-house counsel. He is on the Executive Committee of Golden State Foods, serving as GSF’s Corporate Secretary. GSF is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. As General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, John is responsible for all legal, governance and compliance matters.

John served on the New Jersey Commission on the Discrimination in State Government Contracting, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Task Force on Use of Deadly Force, two terms as President of the Garden State Bar Association and as a Board Member of New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association. John served for three years on New Jersey District X Ethics Committee.John has provided training to sales and finance teams on topics such as revenue recognition, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and gathering and use of competitive information. John has served as a moderator or speaker on issues from corporate investigations, enterprise risk management, ethics and Sarbanes Oxley compliance, outsourcing and diversity. John has been actively engaged in diversity efforts throughout his career at leading law firms and law departments.

In 2009 John conceptualized and established the Corporate Leadership Forum (CLF), which provides structured opportunities for in-house counsel and outside council to foster relationship building and share best practices for business, practice, and professional development.John is President-Elect of the National Bar Association, a member of its Board of Governors, and has served on the Executive, Budget, Long Range Planning, Finance and Fundraising, and Membership Committees. John serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Corporate Counsel, and has been nominated as 2011-2012 Secretary. He is a member of the ACC (member of SoCal ACC Chapter and Board member NJ ACC Chapter), California Association of Black Lawyers (Chair, Judicial Evaluations Committee) and has served on the board of the Education Law Center (Newark, NJ) (Nominating and Finance Committees). In 2010, John received the National Bar Association’s highest award, the C. Francis Stradford Award, for his service to the NBA and to the legal profession.

Additionally in 2010, John was the recipient of the 2010 Orange County Business Journal General Counsel of the Year Award and the Metropolitan Black Bar Association Rising Icon Award. In 2011 the African American Managing Partner Network honored John with the Corporate Counsel Pathfinder Award. Also in 2011, John was elected President-Elect of the National Bar Association, and will serve as President 2012-2013.Throughout his career, John has demonstrated a continuous and sustained pattern of advocacy and support for a diverse legal profession and a diverse corporate America. He is an advocate and practitioner of enhancing business development and legal training for minority attorneys. John has provided business opportunities to capable attorneys of color and non-minority attorneys who have committed to staff matters with a diverse slate of minority and non-minority professionals. As a result, attorneys of color and those committed to a sustained diverse profession are able to and have hired and retained diverse talent.

For his commitment, John received the 2008 ACCA-SoCal Diversity Award. Finally, John is a mentor to law students and is deeply committed to our youth, being involved in organizing "Journey To Attorney" which aims to invite, inform and inspire today’s youth to consider positive choices for the future including one that leads to a career in law.John is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey and is a Registered In-House Counsel in California. John is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the United States District Court for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, John is a 1987 cum laude graduate of Pace University receiving a B.A. in Political Science and minor in History. While at Pace, he was selected to membership in the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. John is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he was an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

John practiced as a commercial litigator for over eight years before going in-house with Lucent Technologies and Avaya Inc. (a spin-off of Lucent). He has litigated and tried numerous cases and has argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. John’s clients have included national real estate developers, global financial services companies and national franchisors. While at Avaya, he served as principal legal counsel to the Worldwide Operations and Services Group which generated over $1.7 billion in revenue for Avaya. John oversaw a number of critical and strategic outsourcing engagements on behalf of Avaya, including one transaction valued at over $350 Million.

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