Quinn Emanuel, Washington & Lee Law School, and Tulane University present:

Temperatures Rising: Risks and Opportunities from Anticipated ESG Disclosure Regulation

Featuring:

Prof. Robert Eccles                                                                                                  Renowned ESG Thought Leader                                                                                    Visiting Professor of Management Practice, Saïd Business School, Oxford       Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards                Board (SASB) 

Sharo Atmeh (Alyeska), Prof. Karen Woody (Washington & Lee Law School), Kate Fuentes (AIG), Ben Axler (Spruce Point Capital), Chris Green (Bain Capital), Prof. Ann Lipton (Tulane Law School), and Tyler Highful (Client Earth).

Please Register for Zoom details!

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Panel 1: The Regulatory and Compliance Environment

• Sharo Atmeh: Sharo oversees Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) integration, engagement and investment at Alyeska Investment Group. Prior to joining Alyeska, Sharo was a Principal at activism-defense and ESG advisory firm CamberView Partners where he helped establish its east-coast presence and grew it to over 50 employees until it was sold to PJT Partners. Prior to joining CamberView, Sharo was in the M&A and Public Company Advisory groups at Simpson, Thacher and Bartlett.  Sharo was named a 2020 Rising Star on Wall Street by Business Insider.

• Karen Woody: Professor Woody is an expert and scholar on securities, compliance, and ESG matters, including nonfinancial disclosures mandates. She is an Associate Professor of Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law, where she teaches classes on corporate governance, securities, and insider trading. Before joining W&L Law, Professor Woody taught in the Business Law and Ethics Department of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, where she taught courses on business planning and corporate finance. Prior to entering academia, she practiced law in Washington, D.C., advising corporate and individual clients on issues related to white collar crime and compliance issues, with a particular focus on international corruption, securities and accounting fraud, and internal corporate investigations.Professor Woody can be reached at kwoody@wlu.edu. 
• Kate Fuentes: Kate Fuentes is the Chief Legal Officer for AIG’s mutual funds and a Deputy General Counsel in the AIG Life & Retirement division.  She is responsible for legal and regulatory matters for over 100 registered funds and has experience with a variety of different types of investment vehicles and products. Kate also has broad experience counseling on strategic and product decisions relating to investment advisory and fund-related matters and has extensive governance experience working with mutual fund boards of directors and investment advisers. Prior to joining AIG, Kate was an Associate in the investment management practice group at Paul Hastings LLP. She is currently enrolled in the Executive MBA program at Yale School of Management, with a focus on asset management.

Fireside Chat

• Robert Eccles: Robert G. Eccles is a leading authority on the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in resource allocation decisions by companies and investors, as well as the world’s foremost academic expert on integrated reporting.  The is a Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and a Visiting Professor of Management Practice at the Saïd Business School at Oxford.

Panel 2: The Enforcement and Litigation Environment

• Ben Axler: Mr. Axler is the Founder and CIO of Spruce Point Capital Management, a short-selling research activist firm that has exposed billions of dollars of financial schemes globally. Prior to founding his company in 2009, Mr. Axler spent eight years as an investment banker with Credit Suisse and Barclays Capital where he structured and executed financing, derivative risk management, and M&A deals for leading Fortune 500 clients. Mr. Axler graduated from Yale University with a Masters degree in Statistics, and received both a Bachelor of Arts degree in Statistics and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Business Administration from Rutgers College, where he graduated with Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors.
• Chris Green: Mr. He is a Managing Director and the General Counsel for Bain Capital.  Prior to joining Bain Capital, Mr. Green was a partner at Ropes & Gray LLP, where he began his legal career in 1999.  He led Ropes & Gray’s Global Litigation and Enforcement Practice for Private Equity and Alternative Asset Management.  Prior to serving in that role, he co-led Ropes & Gray’s Securities Litigation practice and had previously led the Securities Enforcement practice.
• Ann Lipton: An experienced securities and corporate litigator who has handled class actions involving some of the world’s largest companies, she joined the Tulane Law faculty in 2015 after two years as a visiting assistant professor at Duke University School of Law. In 2016, she was named as Tulane's first Michael M. Fleishman Associate Professor in Business Law and Entrepreneurship, and the following academic year she was named the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar, an appointment for early-career Tulane Law professors which provides the resources to expand their research and engagement with other scholars and the broader public. In 2020, one of her articles made the Corporate Practice Commentator's list of the 10 Best Articles of the year. Lipton clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter and 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward Becker before handling securities and corporate litigation at the trial and appellate levels at law firms in New York City. She also worked briefly for the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a scholar, Lipton explores corporate governance, the relationships between corporations and investors, and the role of corporations in society. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Corporation Law, the Fordham Law Review, and the Georgetown Law Journal, among other publications.  Beginning with the Ninth Edition, she became one of the authors of the Securities Regulation: Cases and Materials casebook published by Aspen Publishers.
• Tyler Highful: Tyler Highful is a Cliamte Finance Attorney at Client Earth.