"Ken's wide range of legal and managerial expertise coupled with his successes as both outside counsel and in-house counsel make him well qualified to take on the general counsel role at Starwood," Sternlicht says.

Siegel has served as senior vice president and general counsel of Cognizant/IMS Health/The Gartner Group for the last four years. From 1994 to 1997, Siegel was a corporate partner with Baker & Botts LLP, responsible for a full range of corporate legal services with particular focus on technology-oriented clients including Lotus, Polaroid, Dell and TCI as well as representation of international leveraged buyout funds and securities firms.

Before that, he served as corporate partner with O'Sullivan Graev & Karabell LLP where he focused on work for Lotus as well as major transactional work including the acquisition of Motel 6 by Accor. Siegel began his career in 1980 as a corporate associate with Cravath Swaine & Moore.