Vanessa Allen Sutherland was nominated by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation in March of 2015 and confirmed by the Senate in August of 2015.
Prior to her appointment Ms. Sutherland served as the Chief Counsel for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation, whose mission is to protect people and the environment from the risks associated with hazardous materials transportation.
Prior to PHMSA, Ms. Sutherland spent seven years at Fortune 25 Philip Morris/ Altria Client Services in Richmond, Virginia. She managed technology transactions, procurement matters, data security and privacy, competitive intelligence, U.S. Customs issues, state and federal audits, and issues related to re-organization, dissolution and spin-off of international entities. Prior to her role at Altria, Ms. Sutherland spent six years in various legal roles at MCI/WorldCom, including Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for its webhosting and outsourcing subsidiary, eventually helping the subsidiary through legal matters that followed WorldCom’s admission of accounting fraud and irregularities and bankruptcy. During that time, Sutherland was profiled in the Legal Times for being a top, senior, minority, in-house lawyer. She also has worked briefly for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Inspector General and a law firm.