Sheila M. McDevitt
Sheila McDevitt is a senior executive and business strategist with extensive experience in the public utilities sector. She has a proven track record of creating long-term, sustainable solutions in response to complex business issues from mergers and acquisitions and other commercial transactions to litigation, governance, and political matters. With her strong business judgment and legal background, Ms. McDevitt is recognized as an authority on ethics and compliance. A dynamic public speaker and communicator, she is frequently sought after for industry forums on corporate governance, business ethics, and compliance.
Currently, Ms. McDevitt is the Principal of Sheila A. McDevitt P.L. a consulting firm advising corporations and law firms on business strategies, governmental related issues, and compliance. She also serves as an advisor to senior executives facing new opportunities, challenges, and transitions. Prior to establishing her firm, Ms. McDevitt retired, after 26 years, as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Legal Officer at TECO Energy, Inc. in Tampa, Florida where she is credited for having built the first Legal Department within a 108 year old, large, traditional utility company.
At TECO, Ms. McDevitt was a key member of the CEO’s senior leadership team formulating and implementing strategic initiatives and providing solutions to many significant issues affecting the corporation and its operating companies. From 1987 through 1998, she served as a member of the senior executive advisory group to the CEO focused on issues related to investment in the independent power sector. She led the corporation’s legal affairs, all corporate compliance and governance, environmental strategy; internal and external communications; diversity and the corporate secretary duties. Ms. McDevitt was a member of the Risk Authorizing Committee overseeing hedging activities and as a member of the Capital Leadership Team evaluating certain investments proposed by the operating companies.
As the General Counsel, Ms. McDevitt provided invaluable direction and legal advice to senior executives and the Board on numerous critical matters, significantly, the company’s exit from its merchant power business. She built the expertise within the Legal Department on domestic and international projects, power marketing and trading, and all types of complex commercial transactions. She led the strategic acquisition and merger of Florida’s largest regulated gas utility which expanded the company’s service footprint throughout the state. She created the Standards of Integrity framework in 1987 and a formal Compliance Plan thereafter, which established a comprehensive code of ethics and compliance for TECO Energy; as a result she was appointed the company’s first Corporate Compliance Officer.
Her leadership of groundbreaking NSR pollution control negotiations with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice led to an agreement that established TECO Energy as a national leader in the environmentally responsible production of electricity. She is known for her ability to advocate primarily on environmental, insurance and tort reform matters at both the state and federal level. Ms. McDevitt developed international utility expertise by establishing and structuring ownership and financing of power plants and other companies in Central America and Europe. Prior to joining TECO Energy she was a trail attorney in central Florida. She started her career working with state government in the Florida and Georgia state legislatures.
In recognition of her professional expertise and dedication to the community, Ms. McDevitt was selected by the Secretary of Defense as one of 50 community leaders from throughout the U.S. to attend the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, a 10 day field session on each branch of the armed services. She has received numerous awards including: the Outstanding Contribution Award for Pioneering in Business Ethics from the Center for Ethics at the University of Tampa; Distinguished Alum from the College of Law at Florida State University; several times she was named as one of Florida’s Elite Business Lawyers by Florida Trend magazine; Corporate Counsel of the Year by the Hillsborough County Bar Association and on the lists of Who’s Who in America and 100 Irish American Business Leaders by Irish America magazine.
Ms McDevitt has a deep commitment to public service and higher education and is a gubernatorial appointee with Senate confirmation to the Florida Board of Governors overseeing the State University System for which she is the Vice Chair and the Chair of the Student Affairs Committee. She also served on the Budget & Finance, Nominating & Governance, Academic Programs & Strategic Planning, and Facilities Committees. She Chaired the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education Minority Access and Diversity. Also, she is a Trustee of St. Leo University and served from 2005 to 2007 as the Chair of the Board. She is a former member of the Audit, Advancement and Nominating Committees. For the College of Law at Florida State University she Chaired the Board of Visitors from 2004 to 2005 and has remained a member since 1996.
She also held gubernatorial appointments to the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Nominating Committee from 2001 to 2003 and the Florida Humanities Council, Board of Directors from 1999 to 2003. She was a U.S. Senator of Florida appointee to the Federal Judicial Advisory Commission from 1989 to 1993. Ms. McDevitt was a member of the Florida Department of Labor’s Workers’ Compensation Advisory Council from 1984 to 1988 and a member of the Commission on the Status of Women from 1972 to 1976.
Ms. McDevitt continues to build her expertise in board service and board governance. She attended the Florida Director’s Institute, Women On Boards, OnBoard BootCamp, and the Edison Electric Institute’s, ISS Approved, Director Training Program. She also served as a panelist for a KPMG Audit Committee Roundtable on Risk Assessment.
Her professional and community affiliations are numerous. Professionally, she is a member of the American Bar Association’s Public Utilities and Business Law Committees, the Hillsborough County Bar Association’s International Law, Law Week and Corporate Counsel Committees, the Florida Bar’s Energy Law Committee and a member of the Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee, Judicial Administration, Selection and Tenure Committee, the American Corporate Counsel Association, and the Edison Electric Institute’s Legal Committee.
Within the community, Ms. McDevitt is the Co-Chair of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society at the United Way of Tampa Bay, a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee for The Florida Orchestra, President-Elect of the Hillsborough County Bar Foundation and a member of boards of the Center for Women, Lowry Park Zoological Society and the Pier Aquarium in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Ms. McDevitt holds both a B.A. and J.D. from Florida State University in Tallahassee and continued her education at the Harvard Business School’s Executive Education Program, Leadership in Professional Service Firms. She lives in the Tampa Bay community of North Redington Beach, Florida.