Allen Waxman, currently general counsel of Roivant Sciences and incoming president and chief executive officer of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

The International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution has selected a veteran general counsel as its next president and chief executive officer, the nonprofit announced Monday.

Allen Waxman will take the reins at New York-based CPR in August after winding down his role at Roivant Sciences, where he served as general counsel. He succeeds former Mastercard general counsel Noah Hanft, who is leaving CPR after five years to co-found his own alternative dispute resolution practice.

Waxman's new role is a “natural extension of the kind of work” he's long done as inside and outside counsel. As a litigator and general counsel at Pfizer Inc., where he spent five years, Waxman said he would hold meetings with other pharmaceutical companies' litigation teams to “learn from each other and [find] better ways to communicate if we had a conflict.” That's when he began his involvement with CPR.

“I think my professional experience sets me up to lead this organization. I've always been in and around dispute resolution, and it dawned on me as an outside litigator and as an in-house attorney and general counsel, that there's got to be a better way,” Waxman said in an interview.

Prior to joining Roivant Sciences in 2017, Waxman served as the general counsel and executive vice president of pharmaceutical company Eisai Inc., led the legal team at Pfizer and was a partner at Williams & Connolly and Kaye Scholer, now Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer.

Predecessor Hanft, who played a large role in the new president and CEO's selection process, said he was “delighted to be passing the baton to a fellow former general counsel.” Waxman said his general counsel experience will factor into his new role at CPR.

“I really enjoy working with teams, bringing a culture of openness, of ambition, of value and of values,” Waxman said, and he'll work to develop that culture at CPR as he has in his legal departments.

His other goals include building a larger member base and increasing awareness for dispute prevention and resolution strategies outside of litigation. Waxman will work with a team of around 15 staff who oversee hundreds of arbitrators, collaborate with members and think tanks and report in to CPR's board.

While he has never led a nonprofit before, Waxman said his experience on the boards of Equal Justice Works, the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School in Washington, D.C., and New York City-based Day One and Rising Ground have given him some insight.

“Even though I've been consistently in life sciences [companies] or law firms, each has been different,” Waxman said. “I've always enjoyed starting new things, and this will be new yet.”