Keri Sweet Zavaglia spent her early years training in ballet at The Rock School for Dance Education and with the Pennsylvania Ballet, where she performed from age 12 until an injury ended her career at just 19. However, the discipline, focus and drive that she developed during this period stayed with her as she went on to pursue a career in law. Joining Temple University, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, public relations and advertising in 1999, followed by a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2002. Ms. Sweet Zavaglia began her career in law as an assistant district attorney with the Office of the District Attorney for the city of Philadelphia in 2002 after being licensed to practice law by the Pennsylvania Bar.
Holding considerable expertise in energy, regulatory law and litigation, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia joined National Grid in New York as an associate attorney to the senior counsel in 2006 and was licensed by the New York State Bar the following year. Rising to become the assistant general counsel and director for regulatory law in 2011, she went on to serve as the acting vice president of upstate New York gas operations from 2014 to 2017, vice president of performance and strategy from 2015 to 2018, and vice president and deputy general counsel from 2018 to 2019. Since 2019, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia has excelled as the senior vice president and U.S. general counsel, with her duties encompassing business and commercial issues, risk and compliance, and overseeing a team of roughly 100 people that does the majority of the legal work for National Grid.
Currently, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia is developing a plan for how National Grid will move forward in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and what a new post-pandemic normal will look like for them, serving as the incident commander for their vaccine mandate and executive sponsor for the official “plan forward.” She has found managing their COVID-19 response to be surprisingly enjoyable and interesting work, navigating the implementation of a hybrid work system and creating a positive environment during a difficult time. Furthermore, she is invested in creating a highly diverse and inclusive legal department as well as bringing increased diversity to National Grid more generally and has served as the executive sponsor for Pride at National Grid since 2022. Ms. Sweet Zavaglia notes that they will have the opportunity to reshape the regulatory landscape in the coming years, and she is determined to do it in a way that doesn’t leave anyone behind.
Alongside her primary responsibilities, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia served as the executive sponsor for Women in Nontraditional Roles at National Grid from 2016 to 2020 and is a member of both the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity and Women in Energy. She is also on the central New York executive leadership team for the American Heart Association, where she chaired the Syracuse Heart Challenge in 2022, and sat on the boards of the FM Education Foundation and the St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation from 2016 to 2021. Today, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia holds positions on the board of directors of the United Way of Central New York and the board of trustees of St. Joseph’s Health Hospital and is an active member of the New York State Bar Association, the American Gas Association and the Edison Electric Institute.
Having accomplished much over the course of her career, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia finds the most gratifying aspect of her career to be the times when she gets to step outside of her work as an attorney and be involved in various business-focused endeavors. For her excellence, she was named to the Power 50 by the National Diversity Council in 2022. Beyond these accolades, however, Ms. Sweet Zavaglia considers her most notable achievement to be raising her two sons, Michael, who is 13 and autistic, and Matthew, who is 12. She has learned valuable lessons from both of her sons that have helped her to grow both personally and professionally.
