Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary

Robert H. Steinfeld is senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of IMS. Named to that position in December 2000, Steinfeld’s responsibilities as general counsel include global legal and commercial affairs, government and regulatory relations and corporate compliance.

Steinfeld joined IMS' predecessor company, Cognizant Corporation, in 1997 as director of Taxes. When IMS was spun off from Cognizant in 1998, he was promoted to vice president-Taxes with the new company. Prior to his current assignment, he served as IMS' senior vice president-Tax & Corporate Development. He played a key role in the structuring and implementation of the IMS-Gartner Group spin-off and, most recently, in the Synavant spin-off.

Steinfeld began his business career as a lawyer in New York City. From 1987 to 1991, he was a partner and chairman of the Tax Department at the law firm of Webster & Sheffield, where he represented a variety of US and foreign multinationals.

Before joining Cognizant, Steinfeld held a variety of senior management positions, including vice president-Taxation at Ultramar Corporation, a multinational petroleum refining and marketing company, and vice president-Taxes at GAF Corporation, a privately held, diversified holding company. While at GAF, he also served as vice president-Taxes of GAF’s publicly traded subsidiary, International Specialty Products, Inc., a multinational chemical firm.

Steinfeld earned a BA from Columbia University in 1975, a JD from the Columbia University School of Law in 1978, and an LLM in Taxation from the New York University School of Law in 1981.