James Kiser

In the legal labyrinth where precision meets purpose, Jamie Kiser is aptly positioned as E4E Relief’s general counsel and director of enterprise risk. But, if you're looking for a standard corporate attorney, it would behoove you to keep looking. 

A hypercompetitive force who approaches both courtrooms and blazing mountain trails with equal intensity, Jamie is the rare legal mind who carries the wisdom of a football coach into the boardroom: "Keep your head up and never stop moving your feet." Originally instilled in him as gridiron instruction, it now serves as a metaphor that underscores the importance of him remaining stalwart in adversity and committed to forward progress when the temptation to quit comes knocking. 

While his colleagues know him as the guy who listens carefully before speaking, Jamie communicates in a way that’s self-described as "Direct: The truth as I see it," Jamie's early career experiences shaped a perspective more nuanced than his no-nonsense tagline might suggest. During his first year practicing law, his firm lent him to an understaffed District Attorney’s office, and he found himself in an unexpected dual role — criminal prosecutor by morning, corporate attorney by afternoon. That front-row seat to human struggle established an empathy that now informs his approach to balancing the complexities inherent in global disaster and hardship relief at an organization with compassion as among its core values. Three cheers to puzzle pieces fitting perfectly. 

When not ensuring E4E Relief's legal framework empowers its leaders’ their mission, Jamie might be found scrambling up mountainsides with friends – his ideal holiday – or perhaps contemplating an alternate life as a travel writer with "a backpack on my back and going to dusty, dirty places," though he acknowledges his family might have opinions about that particular career pivot. 

A U2 fan who, channeling E4E’s compassionate mission, enters important meetings to the mental soundtrack of "Beautiful Day", Jamie breaks up the monotony of legal jargon by using the words like onomatopoeia as often as possible (if only to throw the hearer off a bit) and harbors a secret wish for flight—not merely for the freedom, but for the perspective it would provide.  

That search for perspective also drives his literary choices, recently leading him from a Huckleberry Finn reread to Percival Everett's James, a work he appreciates for its unexpected, revealed truth about a character exacting his own justice. And this legal eagle considers himself fortunate to include ironing out the intricacies of ensuring the E4E Relief team can globally get cash grants directly into the hands of the people who need them as his ever-evolving definition of justice.   

In a world where legal expertise often comes wrapped in caution and qualification, Jamie delivers something refreshingly different: tenacity with insight, competitive drive with compassion and accuracy with adventure – a combination as distinctive as an onomatopoeic word in a legal brief.