In-House Promotions at Sony for Mark Khalil and Nicole Seligman

Patricia Paine

Corporate Counsel

06-21-2012

The big-screen news this week at Sony Corporation of America is not about TVs, laptops, or other electronic gadgets—it’s promotions. On June 27, Mark Khalil will become the company’s executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary. Khalil will replace Nicole Seligman, who in turn is being promoted and will become president of SCA. Khalil will continue to report to Seligman, who remains GC of Sony Corporation (which is headquartered in Tokyo; based in New York City, SCA is a U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation).

Khalil’s law career has moved steadily through the ranks of Sony’s subsidiary companies for more than 20 years. He started in 1989 at Sony Electronics (SEL) in Park Ridge, New Jersey, as an in-house attorney. Later he relocated to San Jose, California, as vice president and group counsel of SEL. In 2001, he came back east to New York to work in the SCA legal department. Khalil has served on the board since 2009 and been president of the Sony USA Foundation, the company’s philanthropic division, since 2011.

The new SCA GC grew up in the suburbs of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and graduated from the University of South Carolina with a focus on marketing. But while in college, he felt compelled to change course: “I remembered my passion for politics and law that started when I was in the sixth grade, and I decided to pursue law.” Khalil went on to earn his law degree from Rutgers University School of Law, and before joining SEL, he was an attorney for Schnader, Harrison, Segal and Lewis, based in Philadelphia.

When asked what his favorite Sony product is, Khalil hesitated. “I’m staring at my Sony tablet on my desk and my Sony TV in the corner,” he said, but it’s the company’s more modern technology that’s closer to his heart these days. “I’d have to say it’s my Xperia mobile phone.”