As senior executive vice president and chief strategy officer, William A. Von Hoene, Jr. oversees corporate development, corporate strategy, legal, regulatory, government affairs, investments and communications for Exelon, the nation’s number one competitive energy provider and owner of six utility companies. He serves on Exelon’s Executive Committee, and is the chairman and chief executive officer of Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, a joint venture between Exelon and EDF that owns five nuclear units. He also is chairman of the board of Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited.
Von Hoene joined Exelon in February 2002 and has held numerous positions, including general counsel and executive vice president of Finance and Legal, before assuming his current responsibilities in February 2012.
Prior to joining Exelon, Von Hoene was a senior partner at Jenner & Block, specializing in complex civil and white-collar criminal litigation. While at Jenner & Block, he served on the management committee and, at various times, as hiring partner and chairperson of the firm’s pro bono and diversity committees.
Von Hoene currently serves on the boards of directors for: Northwestern Memorial Hospital (chairman of the Professional Standards Committee); the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the Civic Consulting Alliance; the Diversity Scholarship Foundation; and the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. Von Hoene also is a DuSable Museum of African American History trustee, a Washington DC Federal City Council trustee, and serves on the boards of directors of Building Bridges Across the River (the parent organization of the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC), and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Corporate Fund.
He is past president of the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc., and past general counsel to the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities.
Von Hoene previously has served on the boards of directors of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, the Alliance to Save Energy, the Chicago Legal Clinic, the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Joffrey Ballet. He also served on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and the Executives’ Club of Chicago.
In 2016, Von Hoene was appointed co-chair of the Obama Foundation Inclusion Council, which will assist the Foundation in establishing a framework for diversity and inclusion in all aspects of its operations, including the development of the Obama Presidential Center.
In 2011, he was appointed to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Supplier Diversity Task Force, a procurement initiative designed to help strengthen small and minority and women-owned businesses in Chicago.
In 2010, Von Hoene was appointed to the Department of Commerce National Advisory Council on Minority Business Enterprise. The council served to provide advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Commerce and the President on a broad range of policy issues affecting the minority business community.
While Von Hoene served as Exelon’s general counsel, the Exelon Legal department received the 2007 Association of Corporate Counsel Pro Bono Award, which recognizes the most outstanding corporate pro bono program in the country, and in 2009 was named one of three finalists for Corporate Counsel magazine’s best legal department. Von Hoene received the 2008 Vanguard Award from the Chicago Bar Association, recognizing contributions in making the legal profession more accessible and reflective of the community at large.
In 2009, he received the Spirit of Excellence award from the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, and was named by the National Law Journal as one of the 20 most influential general counsel in the country. Von Hoene also received the 2009 Advocate for Diversity Award for his significant contributions to the legal community and for embracing diversity, and is the 2010 recipient of the Chicago Appleseed Corporate Leader Award.
In September 2010, Von Hoene received the Arthur Goldberg Social Justice Award, presented by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs for his career-long dedication to social justice, and in 2011, he received the Donald Hubert Public Service Award from the Chicago Inn of Court. Von Hoene also received the 2013 Corporate Social Responsibility award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
In 2015, Von Hoene received the Justice John Paul Stevens Award from the Chicago Bar Foundation, presented annually to attorneys committed to integrity and public service in the practice of law. In 2017, Von Hoene was awarded the Chicago Legal Clinic’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Humanitarian Award which annually recognizes an individual whose actions have made a positive impact on people in need. In 2017, Von Hoene was also awarded the Legal Diversity Leader Award by Just the Beginning Foundation.
Von Hoene is a 1980 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, where he served on the Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif, and a 1976 graduate of Yale University.
