Dannette Smith is Secretary to the Board of Directors of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated. As Secretary to the Board, Ms. Smith supports the activities of UnitedHealth Group’s Board of Directors and its standing Committees. Ms. Smith also coordinates the Board of Directors’ engagement with the Company’s shareholders on corporate governance matters and oversees corporate governance for the Company’s subsidiaries.
Prior to joining UnitedHealth Group in June 2004, Ms. Smith was a partner in the corporate department of Dorsey & Whitney LLP, practicing in the areas of corporate securities law, corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Smith was a law clerk for the Hon. Frank Magill, U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit.
Ms. Smith received her B.A., cum laude, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, California and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. She is a member of the bar in the states of Minnesota and New York. Ms. Smith is a member of the Board of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals and Chairs the Corporate Practices Committee. She served as a member of a task force of the ABA Section of Business Law, Corporate Governance Committee on the Delineation of Governance Roles and Responsibilities. She is served on a subcommittee of the Policy Committee of the Council of Institutional Investors regarding proxy voting mechanics and verification and was a member of a Roundtable on proxy voting convened by the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in 2010. Ms. Smith is a recipient of Corporate Secretary magazine’s Corporate Secretary of the Year for 2008 and of the Directorship 100 most influential people in the Boardroom and corporate governance community in 2009. The Company also received an award for most effective shareholder communication for corporate governance from Corporate Secretary magazine in 2009. She has served as a panelist for various professional associations on corporate governance issues.