Keith Gottfried (born 1966 in Brooklyn, New York) is a strategic advisor to public companies and their board of directors in the areas of shareholder activism preparedness and defense.

Over the course of a career that spans more than 30 years, Gottfried has advised numerous public companies and their boards of directors on shareholder activism preparedness and defense, including in connection with high-profile proxy contests, special meeting demands, consent solicitations, and withhold vote/vote no campaigns, as well as unsolicited takeover offers and negotiated and contested M&A situations.

Prior to his death in 2011, Gottfried's father was a resident of Melbourne, Florida and a sales representative for various companies in the tobacco and cigar industries.

In August 2004, Gottfried became engaged to the former Cindy Goldwasser, an attorney, who was then employed as a mediator with the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center in San Mateo, California.

Two weeks later, on April 17, 2005, they were married in a religious ceremony held at the Tierra del Sol Resort, Spa & Country Club in Aruba.

Gottfried received his undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where he graduated from its Wharton School in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics concentrated in Accounting.

At Arthur Young & Company, Gottfried advised clients in the hospitality, computer software, technology, manufacturing, retailing and defense sectors.

From 1994 until 2000, Gottfried was a corporate attorney in the New York City office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP[9] where he practiced in the mergers & acquisitions group.

Following graduation from Boston University School of Law in 1992, Gottfried joined the Philadelphia office of Blank Rome LLP as a corporate associate.

More than a dozen years later, following his service as a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush, Gottfried rejoined Blank Rome LLP in March 2007 as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office where he practiced in the firm's public companies group.

In April 2012, Gottfried joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Alston & Bird LLP as a partner in its Corporate Transactions & Securities Group.

[10][11][12][13] In June 2014, it was announced that Gottfried had joined the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP as a partner in its Corporate and Business Transactions Group.

On July 29, 2005, Gottfried was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as General Counsel for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Gottfried served as this cabinet agency's Chief Legal Officer and was the Senior Legal Advisor to the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and other agency principal staff in the department providing advice on all aspects of Federal laws, regulations and policies applicable to public and Indian housing, community development programs, mortgage insurance programs, complex mixed financing transactions for residential development and health care facilities, fair housing enforcement and urban development programs as well as federal laws, regulations and policies governing ethics, procurement, personnel management and labor relations.

During Gottfried's tenure as General Counsel, HUD announced the then largest settlement of an enforcement action in the history of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).