Bio

Elad Roisman is a member of the Corporate Governance and Board Advisory Practice and the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) Practice. Prior to joining Cravath, Mr. Roisman was a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mr. Roisman represents clients on a broad range of complex regulatory and strategic matters. His practice includes advising public and private companies and other SEC registrants on disclosure, compliance, ESG and general corporate law matters. He counsels clients on mergers and acquisitions, capital market transactions and strategic initiatives, as well as on SEC and congressional investigations, exams and inquiries. In addition, Mr. Roisman applies his deep knowledge of market structure regulation to advise fintech companies, exchanges, trading intermediaries and other financial institutions. As a Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the SEC, Mr. Roisman played an instrumental role in shaping the agency’s rulemaking, enforcement and international work. He led the agency’s efforts to improve the proxy voting process, including amending the rules applicable to shareholder proposals and proxy solicitations. He also helped drive the SEC’s efforts to modernize the regulation of the U.S. equity markets and Treasury markets. Mr. Roisman represented the SEC before the U.S. Congress and other national and international regulatory entities, including the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Financial Stability Board. During his tenure, Mr. Roisman voted on more than one hundred agency rulemakings, opinions, interpretations and guidance documents, and on over 1,000 enforcement actions, including some of the largest cases in the SEC’s history. Mr. Roisman was appointed to the SEC after serving as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, where he helped shepherd major legislation, conducted congressional oversight and investigations, and helped set committee agenda. Previously, he served as Counsel to then SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher, Chief Counsel at NYSE Euronext and as a corporate lawyer in private practice in New York. Mr. Roisman is a frequent speaker, published author and thought leader in the areas of market structure, public company disclosure, corporate governance, ESG, fintech, early-stage companies, digital assets and securities regulation. Mr. Roisman grew up in Israel and New England. He received a B.A. cum laude from Cornell University in 2003 and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 2006.