Damon Silvers is a lawyer and an associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO

AFL-CIO

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...

. Silvers led the AFL-CIO legal team that won severance payments for laid off Enron

Enron

Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 staff and was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with...

 and WorldCom workers.

He is a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is a private-sector, non-profit corporation created by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, a 2002 United States federal law, to oversee the auditors of public companies. Its stated purpose is to 'protect the interests of investors and further the public interest...

 Standing Advisory Group, the Financial Accounting Standards Board

Financial Accounting Standards Board

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles within the United States in the public's interest...

 User Advisory Council, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 Corporate Governance

Corporate governance

Corporate governance is a number of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions which have impact on the way a company is controlled...

 Task Force

On November 14, 2008 Mr. Silvers was appointed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

 and the majority leader of the Senate Harry Reid

Harry Reid

Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...

 (following consultation with the minority leaders of Congress ) to serve on the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

Mr. Silvers received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School. He received his M.B.A. with high honors from Harvard Business School and is a Baker Scholar. Mr. Silvers graduated from Harvard College in 1986, summa cum laude, and has studied history at Kings College, Cambridge University. At Harvard, Silvers was a leader of the anti-apartheid Divestment

Divestment

In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for either financial or ethical objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm...

movement, and was one of two undergraduates invited by Local 26 of the union which represented Harvard's dining hall staff to join their negotiating team in 1986. He attended Bellevue Elementary School and Open High School in Richmond, Virginia.