Mr. Jose Cardenas

José A. Cárdenas is Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Arizona State University. He was a partner in the law firm of Lewis and Roca before joining ASU in 2009.  He also served as the firm’s managing partner and later as its chairman.

Mr. Cárdenas serves on the boards of Southwest Gas Corporation, the CALA Alliance, (which promotes Latino culture), and the Center for the Future of Arizona.  He also serves on the boards of most of ASU's affiliated entities including Skysong Innovations and Zócalo Public Square.  Mr. Cárdenas was a founding board member of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), which he chaired from 2002 to 2011. Mr. Cárdenas served as a member of the executive committee of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, (2003-2015), and he is a Trustee of the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. He has also served on many other boards of directors including those of Meridian Bank, Swift Transportation, Chicanos Por La Causa, the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Xico Inc., (an ethnic arts organization),  and Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association.  Mr. Cárdenas also served as a commissioner on Arizona’s Commerce and Economic Development Commission and he served three Governors as president of the Arizona-Mexico Commission.

Since 2003, Mr. Cárdenas has served as the host of the Eight/KAET weekly public affairs program, Horizonte, which focuses on Arizona issues through an Hispanic lens.  In 2000, he received the Mexican government's Ohtli award given to U.S. residents of Mexican descent in recognition of their service to Mexican communities in the United States.  He was Valley Leadership’s 2000 Man of the Year.