Renee Jones is a professor and听Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School.听 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.听听
From 2021 to 2023, Professor Jones served as the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.听 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.听 In this role, she oversaw the implementation of Commission鈥檚 ambitious rulemaking agenda, including the drafting of proposed and final rules covering topics including the disclosure of climate-related risks, cybersecurity risks, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), insider trading, executive compensation, shareholder voting.听 She also oversaw the Division鈥檚 Disclosure Review Program to ensure corporate compliance with SEC disclosure requirements, handling issues ranging from disclosure by China-based issuer and climate-related risk disclosure to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on corporate issuers.听
Professor Jones鈥檚 scholarship focuses on securities regulation, corporate governance and the federal-state relationship in corporate regulation.听 A frequent commentator on corporate and securities law issues, she has appeared at conferences at law schools and professional societies across the country and abroad. 听 Her article, "," published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, highlights the risks posed by the increasing number of unicorns (private companies valued at $1 billion or more) to investors, employees, consumers, and society. In 2019, Professor Jones testified on this topic before the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets of the House Financial Services Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission鈥檚 Investor Advisory Committee. Professor Jones explores these issues in greater depth in her forthcoming book, Untamed Unicorns: Why the Startup Financing System is Broken 鈥� and How to Fix It (under contract with Harvard University Press).
Professor Jones has been听a Visiting Fellow at New York University Law School, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and the Sorbonne University in Paris.听 From 2005-2006, she was the Eugene P. Beard Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University鈥檚 Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.听 In 2010, she received the Faculty Award for Inspirational Achievement from the Boston College Law Business & Law Society.
Among her many professional and community activities, Jones is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Law and Economic Policy.听 She has also served on the Governing Committee of the Massachusetts Medical Malpractice Reinsurance Plan, and American Law Institute. In addition, she has served as a member of the American Bar Association鈥檚 House of Delegates,听Human Rights Magazine's听editorial board,听and New England Committee of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and has co-chaired the Boston Bar Association鈥檚 Securities Law Committee.
Before joining BC Law in 2002, Professor Jones practiced for eight years at the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow, where she represented private and public companies on corporate and securities matters. Professor Jones received her AB degree from Princeton University and her JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
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