About

Former K&L Gates partner Tamara Watts was already a leading name in the US not-for-profit sector before she made the move in-house to ‘the largest and most important foundation in the world’. ‘She is undoubtedly smart and very knowledgeable, but she is also extremely poised and confident,’ says fellow Exempt Organizations Committee member David Shevlin of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. ‘I envision her as a future leader within our field, which I believe she will accomplish without aggression or opportunistic behaviour, but rather on her own terms and by displaying her natural skills’. ‘Tamara’s not just a phenomenal tax attorney – she’s also just a lovely human being,’ says one colleague. ‘She is very collaborative and has been a wonderful addition to our team’. For Watts, the appeal of the role lay both in the depth and variety of experience on offer, and in the power of the cause itself. ‘It’s a pretty amazing opportunity to be a part of the foundation, which I always had a lot of pride in supporting as a client,’ she says, adding: ‘The complexity and international reach of its work really forces a tax-exempt lawyer like myself to be creative.’