Matthew E. Hamel

Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Matthew E. Hamel is executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of Brown-Forman Corporation.
As general counsel, Hamel leads Brown-Forman’s legal, compliance, risk, and government relations teams, overseeing activities related to corporate governance, SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, regulatory compliance, trade practices, trademarks, litigation, acquisitions, enterprise risk management, and other matters. Hamel also founded and leads a nationwide organization for general counsel and other senior governance professionals at publicly-listed, family-controlled companies.

Hamel has more than thirty years of international legal and corporate management experience in technology, consumer goods, and media firms. Prior to Brown-Forman, he was with Dow Jones & Company, where he served as associate general counsel and vice president, law, Enterprise Media Group. Before that, Hamel was vice president, general counsel and secretary for Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC (d.b.a. Factiva), a multi-national joint venture specializing in online business information and research tools. Before joining Factiva, he worked at Colgate-Palmolive Company as division general counsel, international business development. Hamel started his career as an associate with the law firm of White & Case, representing clients from a variety of industries in such diverse markets as Warsaw, Stockholm, New York and Washington D.C.

Hamel holds a B.A. in economics and political science from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Sweden.