Gretchen Winter

Adjunct Professor

About

Gretchen A. Winter, JD, is the executive director of the Center for Professional Responsibility in Business and Society at the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (the “Center”). Her office is located at the Illini Center in Chicago, and she spends time each week during the semester in Urbana-Champaign. She is a frequent speaker on professional responsibility, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and legal matters for university classes, professional associations, governments, and corporate as well as not-for-profit organizations within and outside of the United States. As part of her role as the Center’s Executive Director, Winter also serves as a member of the Steering Committee for the National Science Foundation’s National On-Line Ethics Center project, as a Visiting Professor at the Universite de Cergy-Pontoise College of Law, and as Program Director for the Conference Board Council on Global Business Conduct.

Winter chaired the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association Board of Directors, and she has been on professional responsibility, business conduct, and ethics committees for the Conference Board, the American Bar Association and DePaul University. She co-authored an article– “International Business Standards: The Competitive Imperative”– that appeared in the Thunderbird International Business Review as well as an article– “Breathing Life into Your Company’s Code of Conduct”– that appeared in the ACCA Docket.

Prior to joining the Center in 2007, she worked for 18 years at Baxter International Inc. in Deerfield, Illinois. She served for more than a decade as Vice President and Counsel, Business Practices/Ethics and Compliance, and in that role developed the company’s global ethics program and provided guidance to those who saw ethical dilemmas in their work. Baxter’s business practice program received the Business Ethics Award from DePaul University Institute for Business and Professional Ethics and the Chicago Business Ethics Award, and the company was listed frequently as one of the “100 Best Corporate Citizens” by Corporate Responsibility Officer (f/k/a Business Ethics) magazine. Earlier in her career at Baxter, Winter also held legal and management roles in labor and employment, employee relations, training and development, and reengineering; she served on the editorial board of the company’s annual sustainability report. Winter also has worked as an attorney with the firm of Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson in Chicago and as a legislative analyst with the State of Illinois.

Winter received her JD from the University of Chicago and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She serves on the Board of Visitors for the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, chaired the Western Illinois University Board of Trustees, served as a member of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, and has been an active member of several other state educational boards. Winter has chaired boards and committees for community organizations including Leadership Greater Chicago, Pegasus Players, the University of Illinois Alumni Association, Project LEAP (Legal Elections in All Precincts), and Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois. She also was a member of Evanston Hospital’s Institutional Review Board and has been inducted into the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Hall of Fame.

Education

JD University of Chicago
BA University of Illinois at Chicago

 

Courses

Compliance, Ethics, & Professional Responsibility