Speaker Biographies: The Future of Financial Regulation in a New Presidential Administration
Megan Barbero
Megan Barbero served as the SEC's General Counsel from February 2023 to January 2025. She joined the agency in July 2021 and previously served as Principal Deputy General Counsel. Before joining the SEC, Ms. Barbero served as Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, where she managed strategic litigation for the House. Prior to her work for the House, Ms. Barbero served as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Appellate staff, representing the United States and its agencies as lead counsel in the federal courts of appeals. Ms. Barbero previously worked in the Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice of a major law firm. Ms. Barbero clerked for Judge Rymer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and is a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford Law School.
William A. Birdthistle
William Birdthistle joined the Law School in April 2024. His scholarship focuses on investment funds, financial regulation, and corporate governance.
Before joining the Law School, he served as Director of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2021-2024. He is the author of Empire of the Fund: The Way We Save Now (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of the Research Handbook on the Regulation of Mutual Funds (Elgar, 2018).
Prior to the SEC, Birdthistle was Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Earlier in his career, Birdthistle clerked for the Honorable Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and practiced law at Ropes & Gray in Boston for five years as an attorney in the firm’s investment management practice.
He received his JD from Harvard Law School in 1999, where he served as managing editor of the Harvard Law Review; an MA in history from the University of Chicago in 2021; and a BA summa cum laude in English and psychology from Duke University in 1995.
Eva Ciko Carman
Eva Carman is the co- head of Ropes & Gray’s global securities and futures enforcement practice and is managing partner of its 550-lawyer New York office. She is a well-known regulatory enforcement lawyer, with over 30 years of experience representing financial firms in SEC, CFTC, and FINRA enforcement cases as well as conducting internal investigations for companies and boards. Her work has received national recognition from leading organizations, including Legal 500, Crain’s, Best Lawyers in America and Chambers, where she is recognized by clients as “extraordinarily knowledgeable,”
“exceptionally smart,” and “superb at what she does.” Her breadth of experience coupled with her knowledge of the financial services industry makes her a go-to lawyer for some of the world’s most sophisticated asset management firms and broker dealers.
Tony Casey
Tony Casey is an expert on business law, finance, and corporate bankruptcy. His research—which has been published in the Yale Law Journal, the Columbia Law Review, the Supreme Court Review, and the University of Chicago Law Review—examines the intersection of finance and law. He has also written about the role of intellectual property law in the organization and financing of creative projects and about how technological innovation is changing the foundations of our legal system more generally.
Before entering academics, Professor Casey was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, LLP. Before joining Kirkland & Ellis, he was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His legal practice focused on corporate bankruptcy, merger litigation, white-collar investigations, securities litigation, and complex class actions. Casey also served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Joel M. Flaum of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Professor Casey received his JD with High Honors in 2002 from the University of Chicago Law School. He received the John M. Olin Prize for the outstanding student of law and economics.
Professor Casey teaches courses and seminars in corporate governance, business law, bankruptcy and reorganization, finance, litigation strategy, civil procedure, and law and technology.
Paul Cellupica
Paul G. Cellupica is the General Counsel of the Investment Company Institute (ICI). As the chief legal officer of the ICI, he represents the ICI on legal and regulatory matters and leads a talented legal team with extensive expertise in securities law and regulation, ERISA, tax law applicable to funds, and other disciplines. He has over 28 years of experience in securities law and related fields, including in a variety of senior legal leadership roles in both the public and private sectors. From 2018 to 2021 he served as Deputy Director and Chief Counsel of the Division of Investment Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where his office was responsible for responding to requests for legal and policy guidance, evaluating applications for exemptive relief, and engaging with international regulators on matters related to asset management. Cellupica also was Executive Vice-President and Deputy General Counsel for U.S Regulatory matters at Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO); General Counsel for Securities Law at Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA); and Chief Counsel for the Americas at MetLife, Inc. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and was a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Erik Gerding
Erik Gerding is a partner in the Silicon Valley office of Freshfields US LLP and a member of the firm's capital markets group. He previously served as Director and Deputy Director of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance and was a law professor at the University of Colorado.
Gurbir S. Grewal
Gurbir S. Grewal is a partner in the New York office of Milbank LLP and a member of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group. Before joining Milbank, he served for over three years as Director of the Division of Enforcement of the US Securities & Exchange Commission and previously served, for more than three years, as Attorney General of the State of New Jersey.
As SEC Enforcement Director, Mr. Grewal oversaw all investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation conducted by the SEC and supervised a staff of more than 1,300 attorneys and accountants nationwide from 2021 to 2024. During his tenure, the Commission brought over 2,400 enforcement actions, resulting in orders for more than $20 billion in financial remedies. These matters included more than 100 enforcement actions addressing noncompliance in the crypto space; a series of high-profile enforcement matters protecting investors in private funds from market manipulation and misleading or inadequate disclosures regarding conflicts of interest, fees and valuation; the first trial finding a defendant liable for insider trading in the shares of a peer company; significant matters involving audit firms and gatekeeper accountability; and a proactive initiative designed to ensure that regulated entities complied with their recordkeeping requirements.
During his time as Attorney General of New Jersey, Mr. Grewal was New Jersey’s chief law enforcement officer and chief legal officer, heading the Department of Law & Public Safety, which employs more than 3,700 uniformed officers, 750 lawyers, and thousands of additional public servants, including investigators, regulators, and administrative staff. As Attorney General, he prioritized protecting New Jerseyans by bringing major antitrust actions alongside other states against several technology and social media companies; holding companies responsible for failing to protect customer data as a result of poor cybersecurity practices; targeting predatory lenders; and filing a number of major Natural Resource Damages cases against some of the country’s largest companies for polluting New Jersey’s natural resources.
Before joining the SEC, Mr. Grewal held other positions of great responsibility in federal and state law enforcement. From 2016 to 2018, before his appointment by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy as Attorney General of New Jersey, Mr. Grewal was nominated by then Governor Chris Christie and served for two years as the Bergen County Prosecutor, the chief law enforcement officer for New Jersey’s most populous county.
He also served as a federal criminal prosecutor for a total of 10 years, first in the Eastern District of New York, and then in the District of New Jersey. While serving as an Assistant US Attorney in New Jersey, Mr. Grewal was Chief and Deputy Chief of the Office’s Economic Crimes Unit.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Grewal worked in private practice as a litigator. Mr. Grewal has tried many cases to verdict and participated in arguments in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson
Commissioner Johnson was sworn in as a CFTC Commissioner on March 30, 2022, after being nominated by President Joseph Biden in September 2021, and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. Commissioner Johnson is a nationally recognized expert on financial markets risk management law and policy with specialization in the regulation of complex financial products including the origination, distribution, and secondary market trading, clearing, and settlement of securities and derivatives. She is an internationally recognized expert on financial markets regulation and corporate governance, compliance, and risk management. Her recent work examines the implications of emerging innovative technologies including distributed digital ledger technologies that enable the creation of digital assets and intermediaries and artificial intelligence technologies that target commercial and consumer financial transactions, transfers, and assessments.
In April of 2021, she testified at a hearing before the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions entitled Banking Innovation or Regulatory Evasion? Exploring Trends in Financial Institution Charters. The single-panel hearing discussed policy considerations with respect to banking charters and explored disintermediation in legacy financial markets such as banking and the provision of clearing and custody services. In July of 2019, she testified before the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Task Force on Financial Technology and the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence entitled Examining the Use of Alternative Data exploring the implications of integrating artificial intelligence in financial technology (fintech) platforms.
Prior to joining the Commission, she held endowed professorships at Emory University and Tulane University Law Schools and visiting professorships at prestigious law schools around the nation. She taught courses in the regulation of securities and derivatives markets, financial institutions, including courses on fintech, the development of blockchain technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as corporations and ethical leadership. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation Fellow, and Chair of the Securities Regulation Section and the Executive Committee of the Business Associations and Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services Sections of the Association of American Law Schools.
Prior to entering the academy, Commissioner Johnson served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel in the Treasury Services Division of one of the largest financial institutions in the world supporting private funds cash management services, a corporate associate at Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett LLP’s New York and London offices where she represented issuers and underwriters in domestic and international debt and equity offerings, lenders and borrowers in banking and credit matters, and private equity firms and publicly-traded companies in mergers and acquisitions. Before attending law school, Commissioner Johnson served as an analyst in the Asset Management Division of a storied financial institution. She clerked for a federal judge who previously served on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Commissioner Johnson has a B.S. with honors from Georgetown University Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service and a J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School where she served as a senior editor on the Michigan Law Review and received the Clara Belfield and Henry Bates International Research Fellowship.
Renee M. Jones
Renee Jones is a Professor and Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School. Her scholarship focuses on securities regulation, corporate governance and the federal-state relationship in corporate regulation. Her courses include Corporations, Securities Regulation, Startup Company Governance, and Financial Regulation. From 2018 to 2021, Professor Jones served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the law school.
From 2021 to 2023, Professor Jones served as the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As Division Director, Professor Jones led a team of more than 400 lawyers, accountants and analysts charged with interpreting, implementing and ensuring compliance with the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and related statutory provisions. In this role, she oversaw the implementation of the Commission's rulemaking agenda, including the drafting of proposed and final rules covering such topics as the disclosure of climate-related risks, cybersecurity risks, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), insider trading, executive compensation, and shareholder voting. She also oversaw the Division’s Disclosure Review Program to ensure corporate compliance with SEC disclosure requirements, handling issues ranging from disclosure by China-based issuers, climate-related risks, risks related to crypto asset businesses, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on corporate issuers.
Urska Velikonja
Urska Velikonja is the J. Crilley Kelly and Terry Curtin Kelly Professor of Business Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Professor Velikonja is an expert in business law and securities regulation. She is best known for research on SEC enforcement of securities laws, from how the SEC enforces the law, how it prosecutes and sanctions offenders, to its efforts to compensate harmed investors. Professor Velikonja's groundbreaking work reframed the academic conversation and administrative policy related to securities enforcement and has produced a groundswell of new research by other scholars.
Prashant Yerramalli
Prashant is currently a Vice President at Public, a retail investing platform where he works on operations and regulatory issues. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the NYU Institute for Corporate Governance & Finance. Previously, he was Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Chair at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Chair, Prashant served as a senior advisor to SEC Chair Gensler on all aspects of the agency’s mission, including enforcement, rulemaking, examinations, policy, and agency operations. He had previously been at the SEC serving initially as Counsel in the Division of Enforcement, Senior Counsel in the Division of Enforcement, Asset Management Unit, and then Counsel to Commissioner Robert Jackson.
Prashant started his legal career as an Associate at WilmerHale, then went on to clerk for the Hon. Naomi Reice Buchwald, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, before spending almost five years as an associate at Jenner & Block.
Prashant has an AB in Public Policy from Brown University where he graduated magna cum laude with honors and a JD from Harvard Law School where he graduated cum laude.