Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley, J.D. is NANA’s senior vice president and chief legal officer (CLO). In her role, she serves as the corporation’s general counsel and oversees government affairs. Saagulik advises NANA’s executive leadership team on compliance and regulatory issues for NANA and its subsidiary businesses. She also provides guidance and support to the board of directors on governance, fiduciary, ethical, transaction and compliance matters. As the head of the government affairs department, she is responsible for developing, managing and leveraging relationships with key stakeholders and partners to promote policies and priorities that benefit NANA’s shareholders and Northwest Alaska. 

Saagulik has worked for NANA as a staff attorney and as a partner at a private law firm, advising Alaska businesses and Alaska Native tribes, organizations and corporations. Her most recent position prior to returning to NANA as the vice president of external and government affairs was as general counsel for Maniilaq Association, a tribal nonprofit corporation that provides health, tribal government and social services to residents of northwest Alaska. She has served as a senior policy advisor to the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior and an aide for the Alaska Legislature.

Saagulik is a NANA shareholder and a tribal citizen of the Native Village of Kotzebue. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and a Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law.