Our Team

EMAIL pjames@fwle.org
PHONE (702) 405-9650
CONTACT PHYLLIS ABOUT FWLE’s strategic initiatives / opportunities for partnership or collaboration with FWLE.

Read Phyllis's Bio

PHYLLIS A. JAMES is a public foundation CEO, and former C-suite executive with more than a decade of service as Chief Diversity & Corporate Responsibility (“CR”) Officer reporting to the Chairman & CEO at MGM Resorts International (“MGM”), a global Fortune 250/S&P 500 hospitality and entertainment company. She combines demonstrated breadth and depth of leadership in translating organizational vision into operational excellence; experience integrating 21st century social purpose and responsibility (CR/ESG) imperatives with sustainable profit-driven business strategy; and particular know-how in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion practices, programs and metrics. Phyllis founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Foundation for Women’s Leadership and Empowerment (“FWLE”) in 2019 (with founding sponsorship from MGM Resorts International). She is now FWLE President & CEO. FWLE seeks to advance America’s quest for gender and racial equity through production of affordable, high-quality leadership education and development programs primarily for women and people of color, as well as men.

In addition to her FWLE work Phyllis now serves on the nonprofit boards of the Advisory Council for the Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership at Howard University College of Arts & Sciences; Nevada Legal Services (for disadvantaged communities) and Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas. She is also a member of the advisory board of algoface, a company which builds artificial intelligence technology to detect and recognize the human face more accurately and more easily. For nearly two decades Phyllis has continued to serve as a corporate board member for MGM subsidiary MGM Grand Detroit, LLC. Prior to her current roles she excelled as a 17-year executive at MGM. As MGM’s Chief Diversity & Corporate Responsibility Officer, Phyllis spearheaded the evolution of MGM’s diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) initiative from its early stages to its acclaimed industry-leading position ‒ embedding inclusion and equality values and practices into the company’s culture, core operations and systems (particularly talent acquisition, development and management) and overall advancing the company’s CR/ESG competitiveness. As head litigation counsel for most of her MGM career Phyllis supervised all litigation (except personal injury), including high-stakes proceedings, and was central to the corporation’s litigation disclosures for public SEC filings and to state gaming regulators. Prior to MGM Phyllis was the first woman appointed on a non-interim basis as Corporation Counsel (Chief Legal Officer) for the City of Detroit, where she represented the Mayor’s Office and 32 executive branch departments, the City’s legislative City Council and more than a dozen city agencies, boards and commissions. She played a central role in implementing the anchor development projects of Mayor Dennis W. Archer’s Administration that jumpstarted Detroit’s depressed economy into its current revitalization: Comerica Park, Ford Field, Campus Martius downtown business district and establishment of the Detroit gaming industry. As head of the City’s then 100-lawyer Law Department she engineered the department’s rehabilitation from a degraded, dysfunctional law practice to operational stability and renewed professional respect through reinstitution of professional standards, systems and processes.

Before this post she was the first African American to progress from associate ranks to partnership at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, then the oldest “powerhouse” corporate law firm in the western U.S. (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) – where she specialized in complex commercial litigation.

Selective Honors and Awards. Among Phyllis’ numerous professional recognitions are: 2019 Most Powerful Women in Corporate Diversity (Black Enterprise Magazine); 2018 and 2016 Top Executives in Corporate Diversity (Black Enterprise Magazine); 2017 Human Rights Campaign Las Vegas Equality Award; 2017 Community Achievement Award (Las Vegas Asian American Group); 2016 National Bar Association Lifetime Achievement Award; and 2014 Minority Lifetime Achievement Award (Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Nevada).

Education. Phyllis earned a B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Harvard/Radcliffe College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. After graduation she clerked for the Honorable Theodore R. Newman, Jr., then Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.