Leadership, Lawyers, and Operationally Prudent Judgment in High-States Assignments

Join the Business and Finance Law Program as they host a conversation about the broader meaning and value of 'lawyerly' judgment and leadership with General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army (Ret.), and Brigadier General Mark S. Martins, U.S. Army. 

About General Petraeus

General (Ret) David H. Petraeus (New York) joined KKR in June 2013 and is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which supports KKR’s investment committees, portfolio companies, and limited partners with analysis of geopolitical and macro-economic trends, as well as environmental, social, and governance issues. Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Following his service in the military, Gen. Petraeus served as the Director of the CIA during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror. Gen. Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy and subsequently earned MPA and PhD degrees in an interdisciplinary program of international relations and economics from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He subsequently taught both subjects at the U.S. Military Academy and later completed a fellowship at Georgetown University.

Gen. Petraeus has received numerous U.S. military, State Department, NATO, and United Nations medals and awards, including four Defense Distinguished Medals, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, and the Combat Action Badge, and he has been decorated by 13 foreign countries.

Since leaving government, he also served as Visiting Professor of Public Policy at City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College for three and a half years, and he has, since 2013, been the Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern California, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, a personal venture capitalist, and Senior Vice President of the Royal United Services Institute. Additionally, he is a member of the boards of the Institute for the Study of War, the Atlantic Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and over a dozen veterans service organizations.

About Brigadier General Martins

In September 2011, Brigadier General Mark S. Martins became Chief Prosecutor of United States Military Commissions. Over the previous year, in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Martins was commander of the Rule of Law Field Force-Afghanistan and of the dual-hat NATO Rule of Law Field Support Mission. The prior year, also in Afghanistan, he had served as the first and Interim Commander of Joint Task Force 435 and then as its first Deputy Commander. In these roles, Brig. Gen. Martins led the effort to reform United States detention operations in Afghanistan and provided field support to Afghan and international civilian Rule of Law Project teams in contested provinces of the country. Commissioned in the infantry after graduating first in Order of Merit from the United States Military Academy in 1983, Brig. Gen. Martins served as a platoon leader and staff officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. He then became a Judge Advocate and has since served in a variety of legal and non-legal positions. These have included criminal trial counsel, operational lawyer, Staff Judge Advocate, chief of staff, and commander. He has been deployed to zones of armed conflict for more than five years and is a seasoned practitioner in the law of war, in counterterrorism, and in military justice. Brig. Gen. Martins has participated in hundreds of courts-martial as trial counsel and Staff Judge Advocate. Since assuming his duties as Chief Prosecutor, he has personally logged more than 400 hours in court on major terrorism prosecutions, prepared scores of trial and appellate legal briefs, and supervised the production of more than a million pages in discovery.

Brig. Gen. Martins is a Rhodes Scholar (Balliol College, PPE, 1st Class Honours, 1985) and a graduate of Harvard Law School magna cum laude (1990). He holds an LLM in military law and a master’s degree in national security strategy. He has published widely in professional journals and has taught intelligence law, war crimes, and the law of war at the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville.

His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Bronze Star (two awards). He has also earned the Ranger Tab, Pathfinder Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, Senior Parachutist Badge, and Air Assault Badge. In April 2011, Brig. Gen. Martins was awarded the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom. He is married to Katherine Dammel Martins, a former Army helicopter pilot, with whom he has two children, both of whom are Army officers who are themselves married to Army officers.