Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Senior Fellow-in-Residence, Milken Institute
Ed DeMarco is a Senior Fellow in Residence at the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets and a Visiting Professor in the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the Comptroller General’s Advisory Board for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
From September 2009 to January 2014 DeMarco served as Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. DeMarco was the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Deputy Director of FHFA and its predecessor from 2006 to 2009. From 2003 to 2006 he was an executive at the Social Security Administration (SSA), where he was Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Policy.
Before joining SSA, DeMarco was Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he oversaw analyses of policy issues involving banks, government sponsored enterprises and other financial institutions. He worked at the U.S. General Accounting Office from 1986 to 1994.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Paul H. Kupiec is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies systemic risk and the management and regulations of banks and financial markets. He also follows the work of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve and examines the impact of financial regulations on the US economy.
Before joining AEI, Kupiec was an associate director of the Division of Insurance and Research within the Center for Financial Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he oversaw research on bank risk measurement and the development of regulatory policies such as Basel III. Kupiec was also director of the Center for Financial Research at the FDIC and chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Kupiec has edited many professional journals, including the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Risk, and Journal of Investment Management.
He has a bachelor of science degree in economics from George Washington University and a doctorate in economics — with a specialization in finance, theory, and econometrics — from the University of Pennsylvania.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Senior Fellow-in-Residence, Milken Institute
Ed DeMarco is a Senior Fellow in Residence at the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets and a Visiting Professor in the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the Comptroller General’s Advisory Board for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
From September 2009 to January 2014 DeMarco served as Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. DeMarco was the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Deputy Director of FHFA and its predecessor from 2006 to 2009. From 2003 to 2006 he was an executive at the Social Security Administration (SSA), where he was Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Policy.
Before joining SSA, DeMarco was Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he oversaw analyses of policy issues involving banks, government sponsored enterprises and other financial institutions. He worked at the U.S. General Accounting Office from 1986 to 1994.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Paul H. Kupiec is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies systemic risk and the management and regulations of banks and financial markets. He also follows the work of financial regulators such as the Federal Reserve and examines the impact of financial regulations on the US economy.
Before joining AEI, Kupiec was an associate director of the Division of Insurance and Research within the Center for Financial Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where he oversaw research on bank risk measurement and the development of regulatory policies such as Basel III. Kupiec was also director of the Center for Financial Research at the FDIC and chairman of the Research Task Force of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. He has previously worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan, and for the Division of Research and Statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Kupiec has edited many professional journals, including the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Risk, and Journal of Investment Management.
He has a bachelor of science degree in economics from George Washington University and a doctorate in economics — with a specialization in finance, theory, and econometrics — from the University of Pennsylvania.
Partner and Deputy Chair, Securities Department, WilmerHale
Daniel Gallagher advises corporate boards and management on the full range of legal and strategic issues they face, and counsels financial services and accounting firms in investigations, regulatory proceedings and policy matters. Mr. Gallagher brings to his practice an unparalleled breadth of experience from having served not only in senior positions at the Securities and Exchange Commission but also as the chief legal officer of a global, S&P 500 corporation and general counsel of a broker-dealer.
Mr. Gallagher has extensive experience in the public and private sectors, navigating regulatory matters, financial markets, corporate legal affairs and governance, and fintech issues, including the regulatory and policy issues arising from new technology.
Mr. Gallagher previously served as the chief legal officer at Mylan N.V., a leading global pharmaceutical company; as the president of a financial services consulting firm; and as an SEC Commissioner. As an SEC Commissioner, Mr. Gallagher championed corporate governance reform, advocated for a comprehensive holistic review of equity market structural issues, and encouraged greatly improving the commission’s fixed income market expertise.
Mr. Gallagher also served on SEC staff in various senior roles, including as the deputy director and co-acting director of the Division of Trading and Markets, where he was on the front lines of the agency’s response to the financial crisis, including representing the commission in the Lehman Brothers liquidation. He was also a counsel to former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins and to former Chairman Christopher Cox, working on matters involving the Division of Enforcement and the Division of Trading and Markets.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Gallagher was the senior vice president and general counsel of a global provider of financial services technology, where he managed all legal and regulatory matters. He first joined WilmerHale in 1993 as an associate in the firm’s Securities Department.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy, Brookings Institution
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Timothy P. Carney is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on economic competition, cronyism, civil society, localism, and religion in America. He is concurrently the commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
Mr. Carney’s latest book, “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse” (HarperCollins), was published in February 2019. His previous books include “Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses” (Regnery Publishing, 2009) and “The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money” (John Wiley & Sons, 2006), which was awarded the 2008 Culture of Enterprise award by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
In addition to his Washington Examiner columns, Mr. Carney’s work has been published in a variety of magazines, websites, and newspapers, including The Atlantic, New York Post, The New York Times, Reason Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. His television appearances include CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the “PBS NewsHour.”
Mr. Carney has a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Mr. Guynn is head of Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group. He has been recognized as a thought-leader on financial regulatory reform and as one of the most widely consulted U.S. legal advisers during the financial crisis. See “In the Red Zone,”The American Lawyer, January 2009 and “For Davis Polk, Dodd-Frank Pays,” The American Lawyer, December 2010.
He has advised the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the principal trade organization for U.S. banks, securities firms and asset managers, all of the U.S.’s six-largest banks and several foreign banks on the Dodd-Frank Act and its regulatory implementation.
His practice focuses on providing strategic bank and regulatory and enforcement advice and advising on M&A and capital markets transactions when the target or issuer is a banking organization or other financial institution. He also advises on bank failures and recapitalizations, corporate governance and internal controls, cross-border collateral transactions, credit risk management, securities settlement systems and payment systems.
Director of Research, Bloomberg Government, Bloomberg News
Now Director of Research at Bloomberg Government, Robert E. Litan has had a distinguished career. He had been vice president for Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, where he oversaw the Foundation’s extensive program for funding data collection and research relating entrepreneurship and economic growth. Dr. Litan also writes frequently with the Foundation’s president, Carl Schramm. Their book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, co-authored with William Baumol, (Yale University Press, 2007) has been translated into ten languages and is used as a college text around the world.
Dr. Litan was also a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he previously was vice president and director of Economic Studies. During his career, Dr. Litan has authored or co-authored over twenty books, edited another fourteen, and authored or co-authored over 200 articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers on a broad range of public policy issues. His other recent books include: Competitive Equity: Developing a Lower Cost Alternative for Mutual Funds (with Peter J. Wallison, AEI Press, 2007); Worldwide Financial Reporting (Oxford University Press, 2006, with three co-authors); Financial Statecraft (with Benn Steil, Yale University Press, 2006); and Follow The Money: The Enron Failure and the State of Corporate Disclosure (AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2003, with 3 co-authors).
Dr. Litan has been a lecturer in banking law at the Yale Law School, consulted for numerous organizations (public and private), and testified as an expert witness in a variety of legal and regulatory proceedings involving domestic (banking, antitrust) and international (primarily trade) issues. He also consulted for private sector firms and the Department of Justice on antitrust matters. Among his various assignments, he has written a number of influential federal reports. He co-authored two Congressionally-mandated studies for the Treasury Department on the role of the Community Reinvestment Act after the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. During 1996-97, he served as a consultant to the Treasury Department and was the lead author of its report to Congress on the future of the financial services industry (American Finance in the 21st Century), and in 1998-99, he was the main author of the Report of President’s Commission to Study Capital Budgeting. In 1998, he also chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters, which produced a report, The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation.
Dr. Litan has served in several capacities in the federal government. During 1995 and 1996, he was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he was responsible for overseeing budgetary and other policies of six cabinet agencies. From 1993 to 1995, he was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, in charge of civil antitrust litigation and regulatory issues at the Department of Justice (where among other matters, he supervised the first Microsoft investigation, which resulted in a consent decree; and the investigation against NASDAQ). From 1977 to 1979, he was the regulatory and legal staff specialist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. In the early 1990s, Dr. Litan was a member of the Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis.
Dr. Litan received his B.S. in economics (summa cum laude) from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania; his J.D. from Yale Law School; and both his M. Phil. and Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy, Brookings Institution
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Timothy P. Carney is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he works on economic competition, cronyism, civil society, localism, and religion in America. He is concurrently the commentary editor at the Washington Examiner.
Mr. Carney’s latest book, “Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse” (HarperCollins), was published in February 2019. His previous books include “Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses” (Regnery Publishing, 2009) and “The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money” (John Wiley & Sons, 2006), which was awarded the 2008 Culture of Enterprise award by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
In addition to his Washington Examiner columns, Mr. Carney’s work has been published in a variety of magazines, websites, and newspapers, including The Atlantic, New York Post, The New York Times, Reason Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. His television appearances include CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the “PBS NewsHour.”
Mr. Carney has a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Mr. Guynn is head of Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group. He has been recognized as a thought-leader on financial regulatory reform and as one of the most widely consulted U.S. legal advisers during the financial crisis. See “In the Red Zone,”The American Lawyer, January 2009 and “For Davis Polk, Dodd-Frank Pays,” The American Lawyer, December 2010.
He has advised the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the principal trade organization for U.S. banks, securities firms and asset managers, all of the U.S.’s six-largest banks and several foreign banks on the Dodd-Frank Act and its regulatory implementation.
His practice focuses on providing strategic bank and regulatory and enforcement advice and advising on M&A and capital markets transactions when the target or issuer is a banking organization or other financial institution. He also advises on bank failures and recapitalizations, corporate governance and internal controls, cross-border collateral transactions, credit risk management, securities settlement systems and payment systems.
Director of Research, Bloomberg Government, Bloomberg News
Now Director of Research at Bloomberg Government, Robert E. Litan has had a distinguished career. He had been vice president for Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, where he oversaw the Foundation’s extensive program for funding data collection and research relating entrepreneurship and economic growth. Dr. Litan also writes frequently with the Foundation’s president, Carl Schramm. Their book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, co-authored with William Baumol, (Yale University Press, 2007) has been translated into ten languages and is used as a college text around the world.
Dr. Litan was also a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he previously was vice president and director of Economic Studies. During his career, Dr. Litan has authored or co-authored over twenty books, edited another fourteen, and authored or co-authored over 200 articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers on a broad range of public policy issues. His other recent books include: Competitive Equity: Developing a Lower Cost Alternative for Mutual Funds (with Peter J. Wallison, AEI Press, 2007); Worldwide Financial Reporting (Oxford University Press, 2006, with three co-authors); Financial Statecraft (with Benn Steil, Yale University Press, 2006); and Follow The Money: The Enron Failure and the State of Corporate Disclosure (AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2003, with 3 co-authors).
Dr. Litan has been a lecturer in banking law at the Yale Law School, consulted for numerous organizations (public and private), and testified as an expert witness in a variety of legal and regulatory proceedings involving domestic (banking, antitrust) and international (primarily trade) issues. He also consulted for private sector firms and the Department of Justice on antitrust matters. Among his various assignments, he has written a number of influential federal reports. He co-authored two Congressionally-mandated studies for the Treasury Department on the role of the Community Reinvestment Act after the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. During 1996-97, he served as a consultant to the Treasury Department and was the lead author of its report to Congress on the future of the financial services industry (American Finance in the 21st Century), and in 1998-99, he was the main author of the Report of President’s Commission to Study Capital Budgeting. In 1998, he also chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Disasters, which produced a report, The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation.
Dr. Litan has served in several capacities in the federal government. During 1995 and 1996, he was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he was responsible for overseeing budgetary and other policies of six cabinet agencies. From 1993 to 1995, he was Deputy Assistant Attorney General, in charge of civil antitrust litigation and regulatory issues at the Department of Justice (where among other matters, he supervised the first Microsoft investigation, which resulted in a consent decree; and the investigation against NASDAQ). From 1977 to 1979, he was the regulatory and legal staff specialist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. In the early 1990s, Dr. Litan was a member of the Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis.
Dr. Litan received his B.S. in economics (summa cum laude) from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania; his J.D. from Yale Law School; and both his M. Phil. and Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Timothy Flanigan Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, Corporate S, Cancer Treatment Centers of America
Timothy E. Flanigan is the Chief Legal for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). With a rich background as a leader and senior legal advisor, he has more than 35 years of experience in public companies, the private practice of law, and in senior levels of government service.
Prior to joining CTCA, Mr. Flanigan served as Senior Vice President and Principal Deputy General Counsel at BlackBerry, Limited where he was responsible for the legal, business affairs and corporate security functions, as well as the company’s global government relations efforts. Previously, he was a senior partner with the international law firm McGuireWoods, LLC, and Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Tyco International, where he helped successfully revitalize that $40 billion enterprise.
Mr. Flanigan served the United States in multiple roles throughout his career, including Senior Law Clerk to the Honorable Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States. He also served as Deputy Counsel to President George W. Bush, where he coordinated legal strategy throughout the executive branch on anti-terrorism and other issues. He was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.
Mr. Flanigan earned his law degree and his MBA from the University of Virginia, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Brigham Young University.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Ruby R. Vale Professor of Corporate and Business Law, Widener University School of Law
Lawrence A. Hamermesh is the Ruby R. Vale Professor of Corporate and Business Law at Widener's Delaware campus and former Director of the Widener Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law. Professor Hamermesh received a B.A. from Haverford College in 1973, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1976.
Following graduation from law school, Professor Hamermesh worked as Associate Attorney with Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell in Wilmington, Delaware, from 1976-84, and was a partner at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell from 1985-94.
Professor Hamermesh joined the faculty at Widener in 1994 as Associate Professor of Law. Professor Hamermesh is admitted to practice in Delaware, and he teaches and writes in the areas of Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities Regulation, Business Organizations, Corporate Takeovers, and Professional Responsibility.
Professor Hamermesh was elected in 1999 as a member of the American Law Institute. Since 1995 he has been a member of the Corporation Law Council of the Corporation Law Section of the Delaware State Bar Association, which is responsible for the annual review and modernization of the Delaware General Corporation Law, and was Chair of the Council from 2002-2004.
In 2001, Professor Hamermesh was elected as a member of the Corporate Laws Committee of the American Bar Association Business Law Section, which supervises the drafting and revision of the Model Business Corporation Act. Professor Hamermesh is also a member of the Board of Directors of ACLU Delaware, Inc., and the national board of directors of the ACLU.
Professor Hamermesh has been active in a number of professional and civic organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union Delaware (President since 1996-2003) and Delaware Volunteer Legal Services, Inc. (Treasurer and Director from 1992 to 2000). In 2002-2003, Professor Hamermesh served as the Reporter for the American Bar Association Task Force on Corporate Responsibility.
Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
Jeffrey P. Mahoney joined the Council of Institutional Investors ("Council") in 2006 as General Counsel. As General Counsel, Mahoney responsibilities include advocating the Council's membership approved policies before standard setters, regulators, Members of Congress, and other policy makers. Prior to joining the Council, Mahoney was Counsel to the Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB"). Since 1996, he served FASB and, its parent entity, the Financial Accounting Foundation, in a variety of research, technical and administrative matters and was primarily responsible for the FASB's Washington, DC liaison activities. Prior to joining the FASB, Mahoney was a corporate/securities lawyer at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, a law clerk to the Honorable James G. Exum, Jr., Chief Justice, of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and an auditor at Arthur Andersen LLP.
Mahoney holds a J.D. degree, served on the North Carolina Law Review, and was named to the Order of the Coif. He also holds a B.B.A. degree and an A.A. degree. He is a member of the District of Columbia and North Carolina Bar Associations. He also is a certified public accountant in North Carolina and Michigan and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Mahoney is currently a member and was the initial Co-Chair of the FASB's Investors Technical Advisory Committee, Vice Chair of the Investor Rights Committee of the Corporation, Finance, and Securities Law Section of the DC Bar, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Standing Advisory Group, and a member of the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Hearing Panel. Mahoney holds a J.D. degree and served on the North Carolina Law Review. He also holds a B.B.A. degree and an A.A. degree. He is a member of the District of Columbia and North Carolina Bar Associations. He also is a certified public accountant in North Carolina and Michigan and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Mahoney is currently the Co-Chair of the FASB's Investor Technical Advisory Committee, Vice Chair of the Investor Rights Committee of the Corporation, Finance, and Securities Law Section of the DC Bar, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Standing Advisory Group, and a member of the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Hearing Panel.
Deputy Director, AFL-CIO Office of Investment
Senior Vice President, Policy and Governance, Apache Corporation
SARAH B. TESLIK was appointed senior vice president - Policy and Governance in October 2006.
Prior to joining the Company, she was chief executive officer of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. from November 2004 to October 2006, and executive director of the Council of Institutional Directors from July 1988 to October 2004.
Ms. Teslik holds a bachelor's degree from Whitman College, a master's degree from Oxford University, and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Ruby R. Vale Professor of Corporate and Business Law, Widener University School of Law
Lawrence A. Hamermesh is the Ruby R. Vale Professor of Corporate and Business Law at Widener's Delaware campus and former Director of the Widener Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law. Professor Hamermesh received a B.A. from Haverford College in 1973, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1976.
Following graduation from law school, Professor Hamermesh worked as Associate Attorney with Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell in Wilmington, Delaware, from 1976-84, and was a partner at Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell from 1985-94.
Professor Hamermesh joined the faculty at Widener in 1994 as Associate Professor of Law. Professor Hamermesh is admitted to practice in Delaware, and he teaches and writes in the areas of Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, Securities Regulation, Business Organizations, Corporate Takeovers, and Professional Responsibility.
Professor Hamermesh was elected in 1999 as a member of the American Law Institute. Since 1995 he has been a member of the Corporation Law Council of the Corporation Law Section of the Delaware State Bar Association, which is responsible for the annual review and modernization of the Delaware General Corporation Law, and was Chair of the Council from 2002-2004.
In 2001, Professor Hamermesh was elected as a member of the Corporate Laws Committee of the American Bar Association Business Law Section, which supervises the drafting and revision of the Model Business Corporation Act. Professor Hamermesh is also a member of the Board of Directors of ACLU Delaware, Inc., and the national board of directors of the ACLU.
Professor Hamermesh has been active in a number of professional and civic organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union Delaware (President since 1996-2003) and Delaware Volunteer Legal Services, Inc. (Treasurer and Director from 1992 to 2000). In 2002-2003, Professor Hamermesh served as the Reporter for the American Bar Association Task Force on Corporate Responsibility.
Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
Jeffrey P. Mahoney joined the Council of Institutional Investors ("Council") in 2006 as General Counsel. As General Counsel, Mahoney responsibilities include advocating the Council's membership approved policies before standard setters, regulators, Members of Congress, and other policy makers. Prior to joining the Council, Mahoney was Counsel to the Chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB"). Since 1996, he served FASB and, its parent entity, the Financial Accounting Foundation, in a variety of research, technical and administrative matters and was primarily responsible for the FASB's Washington, DC liaison activities. Prior to joining the FASB, Mahoney was a corporate/securities lawyer at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, a law clerk to the Honorable James G. Exum, Jr., Chief Justice, of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and an auditor at Arthur Andersen LLP.
Mahoney holds a J.D. degree, served on the North Carolina Law Review, and was named to the Order of the Coif. He also holds a B.B.A. degree and an A.A. degree. He is a member of the District of Columbia and North Carolina Bar Associations. He also is a certified public accountant in North Carolina and Michigan and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Mahoney is currently a member and was the initial Co-Chair of the FASB's Investors Technical Advisory Committee, Vice Chair of the Investor Rights Committee of the Corporation, Finance, and Securities Law Section of the DC Bar, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Standing Advisory Group, and a member of the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Hearing Panel. Mahoney holds a J.D. degree and served on the North Carolina Law Review. He also holds a B.B.A. degree and an A.A. degree. He is a member of the District of Columbia and North Carolina Bar Associations. He also is a certified public accountant in North Carolina and Michigan and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Mahoney is currently the Co-Chair of the FASB's Investor Technical Advisory Committee, Vice Chair of the Investor Rights Committee of the Corporation, Finance, and Securities Law Section of the DC Bar, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Standing Advisory Group, and a member of the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Hearing Panel.
Deputy Director, AFL-CIO Office of Investment
Senior Vice President, Policy and Governance, Apache Corporation
SARAH B. TESLIK was appointed senior vice president - Policy and Governance in October 2006.
Prior to joining the Company, she was chief executive officer of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. from November 2004 to October 2006, and executive director of the Council of Institutional Directors from July 1988 to October 2004.
Ms. Teslik holds a bachelor's degree from Whitman College, a master's degree from Oxford University, and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Partner, Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Paul G. Mahoney is a David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor and served as dean of the Law School from 2008-16. Mahoney's teaching and research areas are securities regulation, law and economic development, corporate finance, financial derivatives and contracts. He has published widely in law reviews and peer-reviewed finance and law and economics journals. His book, “Wasting a Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails,” was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2015.
Mahoney joined the Law School faculty in 1990 after practicing law with the New York firm of Sullivan & Cromwell and clerking for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as academic associate dean at the Law School from 1999 to 2004 and has held the Albert C. BeVier Research Chair and the Brokaw Chair in Corporate Law. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School, the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He has also worked on legal reform projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Nepal.
Mahoney is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018 he joined Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives from 2004 to 2007 and as a director of the American Law and Economics Association from 2002 to 2004. He is a past recipient of the All-University Outstanding Teacher Award and the Law School's Traynor Award for excellence in faculty scholarship.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Annette L. Nazareth is a Davis Polk partner practicing in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group in the Washington DC office. She advises clients across a broad range of complex regulatory matters and transactions. She also works closely with Davis Polk’s SEC enforcement practice, counseling nonfinancial sector corporations that are subject to government regulatory and enforcement actions.
Ms. Nazareth was a key financial services policymaker for more than a decade. She joined the SEC Staff in 1998 as a Senior Counsel to Chairman Arthur Levitt and then served as Interim Director of the Division of Investment Management. She served as Director of the Division of Market Regulation (now the Division of Trading and Markets) from 1999 to 2005. As Director, she oversaw the regulation of broker-dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies, transfer agents and securities information processors. In 2005, she was appointed an SEC Commissioner. During her tenure at the Commission, she worked on numerous groundbreaking initiatives, including execution quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms and modernization of the national market system rules. Ms. Nazareth also served as the Commission’s representative on the Financial Stability Forum from 1999 to 2008.
Since leaving the SEC in January 2008, she has served as Rapporteur for the Group of Thirty’s report, The Structure of Financial Supervision: Approaches and Challenges in a Global Marketplace and as Project Director for their report, Enhancing Financial Stability and Resilience: Macroprudential Policy, Tools and Systems for the Future. Earlier in her career, she held a number of senior legal positions at several investment banks.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21, 2025, after being nominated by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, 2025, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 9, 2025.
Prior to returning to the SEC, Chairman Atkins was most recently chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, a company he founded in 2009. Chairman Atkins helped lead efforts to develop best practices for the digital asset sector. He served as an independent director and non-executive chairman of the board of BATS Global Markets, Inc. from 2012 to 2015.
Chairman Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a Commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2008. During his tenure, he advocated for transparency, consistency, and the use of cost-benefit analysis at the agency. Chairman Atkins also represented the SEC at meetings of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council. From 2009 to 2010, he was appointed a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Before serving as an SEC Commissioner, Chairman Atkins was a consultant on securities and investment management industry matters, especially regarding issues of strategy, regulatory compliance, risk management, new product development, and organizational control.
From 1990 to 1994, Chairman Atkins served on the staff of two chairmen of the SEC, Richard C. Breeden and Arthur Levitt, ultimately as chief of staff and counselor, respectively. He received the SEC’s 1992 Law and Policy Award for work regarding corporate governance matters.
Chairman Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions. He was resident for 2½ years in his firm's Paris office and admitted as conseil juridique in France.
A member of the New York and Florida bars, Chairman Atkins received his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law in 1983 and was Senior Student Writing Editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He received his A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College in 1980.
Originally from Lillington, North Carolina, Chairman Atkins grew up in Tampa, Florida. He and his wife Sarah have three sons.
Partner, Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
Edith Jones graduated from Alamo Heights High School, where she was a National Merit Scholar. In 1971, she received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University, graduating with honors. In 1974, she was awarded her J.D. at the University of Texas Law School, where she was a law review editor and received the Order of the Coif.
Judge Jones was the first female partner at Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones (now Hunton Andrews Kurth) where she practiced various types of litigation and bankruptcy cases. Judge Jones went on the federal bench on June 1, 1985.
Judge Jones served as a former member of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, and as a member of the Judicial Conference Commission on Bankruptcy Rules. Judge Jones served on the White House Fellows Commission. Judge Jones served on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. She has been a member of the Garland Walker Inn of Court in Houston for more than 20 years and its President for at least ten years. Judge Jones is also on the Board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.
David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Paul G. Mahoney is a David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor and served as dean of the Law School from 2008-16. Mahoney's teaching and research areas are securities regulation, law and economic development, corporate finance, financial derivatives and contracts. He has published widely in law reviews and peer-reviewed finance and law and economics journals. His book, “Wasting a Crisis: Why Securities Regulation Fails,” was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2015.
Mahoney joined the Law School faculty in 1990 after practicing law with the New York firm of Sullivan & Cromwell and clerking for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as academic associate dean at the Law School from 1999 to 2004 and has held the Albert C. BeVier Research Chair and the Brokaw Chair in Corporate Law. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School, the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He has also worked on legal reform projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Nepal.
Mahoney is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2018 he joined Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives from 2004 to 2007 and as a director of the American Law and Economics Association from 2002 to 2004. He is a past recipient of the All-University Outstanding Teacher Award and the Law School's Traynor Award for excellence in faculty scholarship.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Annette L. Nazareth is a Davis Polk partner practicing in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group in the Washington DC office. She advises clients across a broad range of complex regulatory matters and transactions. She also works closely with Davis Polk’s SEC enforcement practice, counseling nonfinancial sector corporations that are subject to government regulatory and enforcement actions.
Ms. Nazareth was a key financial services policymaker for more than a decade. She joined the SEC Staff in 1998 as a Senior Counsel to Chairman Arthur Levitt and then served as Interim Director of the Division of Investment Management. She served as Director of the Division of Market Regulation (now the Division of Trading and Markets) from 1999 to 2005. As Director, she oversaw the regulation of broker-dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies, transfer agents and securities information processors. In 2005, she was appointed an SEC Commissioner. During her tenure at the Commission, she worked on numerous groundbreaking initiatives, including execution quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms and modernization of the national market system rules. Ms. Nazareth also served as the Commission’s representative on the Financial Stability Forum from 1999 to 2008.
Since leaving the SEC in January 2008, she has served as Rapporteur for the Group of Thirty’s report, The Structure of Financial Supervision: Approaches and Challenges in a Global Marketplace and as Project Director for their report, Enhancing Financial Stability and Resilience: Macroprudential Policy, Tools and Systems for the Future. Earlier in her career, she held a number of senior legal positions at several investment banks.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Credit to Cronies: Government’s Heavy—IF Hidden—Hand
Wayne A. Abernathy, Paul S. Atkins, Edward J. DeMarco, Bert Ely, Paul H. Kupiec
2014 National Lawyers Convention
Key to a vibrant and increasingly productive economy is an efficient credit allocation process --...
Credit to Cronies: Government’s Heavy—IF Hidden—Hand
Wayne A. Abernathy, Paul S. Atkins, Edward J. DeMarco, Bert Ely, Paul H. Kupiec
2014 National Lawyers Convention
Key to a vibrant and increasingly productive economy is an efficient credit allocation process --...
A Conversation with SEC Commissioners Daniel Gallagher and Paul Atkins - Podcast
Daniel M. Gallagher, Paul S. Atkins
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group Podcast
Securities and Exchange Commissioner Daniel Gallagher and former Commissioner Paul Atkins joined us on a...
Financial Services: Too Big To Fail - What Now?
Paul S. Atkins, Martin Neil Baily, Timothy P. Carney, Randall D. Guynn, Robert E. Litan
2013 National Lawyers Convention
In the aftermath of the recent economic crisis a remarkable political consensus developed that no...
Financial Services: Too Big To Fail - What Now?
Paul S. Atkins, Martin Neil Baily, Timothy P. Carney, Randall D. Guynn, Robert E. Litan
2013 National Lawyers Convention
In the aftermath of the recent economic crisis a remarkable political consensus developed that no...
Too Big to Prosecute? - Podcast
Paul S. Atkins, Timothy E. Flanigan, Dean Reuter
Financial Services & E-Commerce Practice Group Podcast
Are some large firms, financial or otherwise, getting a free pass from prosecution because of...
Corporations: The Creeping Federalization of Corporate Governance Law: The Dodd-Frank Bill
Paul S. Atkins, Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Jeffrey P. Mahoney, Brandon Rees, Sarah B. Teslik
2010 National Lawyers Convention
Hon. Paul S. Atkins, Managing Director, Patomak Partners and former Commissioner, U.S. Securities & Exchange...
Corporations: The Creeping Federalization of Corporate Governance Law: The Dodd-Frank Bill
Paul S. Atkins, Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Jeffrey P. Mahoney, Brandon Rees, Sarah B. Teslik
2010 National Lawyers Convention
Hon. Paul S. Atkins, Managing Director, Patomak Partners and former Commissioner, U.S. Securities & Exchange...
Showcase Panel III: Regulation of Financial Institutions
Paul S. Atkins, Stephanie R. Breslow, Edith H. Jones, Paul G. Mahoney, Annette L. Nazareth, Dean Reuter
2009 National Lawyers Convention
Quite independent of questions concerning wealth distribution and bailouts, there is the question of whither...
Showcase Panel III: Regulation of Financial Institutions
Paul S. Atkins, Stephanie R. Breslow, Edith H. Jones, Paul G. Mahoney, Annette L. Nazareth, Dean Reuter
2009 National Lawyers Convention
Quite independent of questions concerning wealth distribution and bailouts, there is the question of whither...