Jim Bennett

As senior vice president and chief legal officer for Ellucian, Jim Bennett is responsible for managing the legal affairs of the company and in so doing, works closely with public and private universities around the world.

Jim began his career with Ellucian as deputy general counsel for Systems & Computer Technology Corporation (SCT), a publicly-held company that serviced the information technology needs of entities in the higher education, local government, utilities, and process manufacturing marketplaces. When SCT was acquired by SunGard in 2005, he joined the corporate legal team. He served as general counsel for SunGard’s local government and K-12 divisions, and then became general counsel of SunGard Higher Education. In 2012, Hellman & Friedman LLC acquired SunGard Higher Education and combined it with Datatel to create Ellucian, bringing Jim and the rest of his legal team to the new company.

Jim was recognised by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2015, when he received their Corporate Counsel Award, and in 2016, Ellucian’s legal department was cited as “Pennsylvania’s Best Legal Department—General Excellence” by The Legal Intelligencer.

Jim is a graduate of Holy Family University, where he received his BA in English, with a secondary teaching certificate. He earned his JD from Villanova University School of Law.