Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (47 Nominee)

Jay Clayton served as the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and 32nd Exchange Commission from May 2017 to December 2020. He is a Senior Policy Advisor and Of Counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and Non-Executive Chairman of Apollo Global Management.

He actively advises participants in the financial services sector and other sectors as well as being a Director of American Express and an Adjunct Professor Wharton School and Carey Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. He also has advisory roles with several privately held companies and non-profit organizations.

As Chairman of the SEC, Mr. Clayton focused on modernizing the regulation and oversight of our equity and fixed income markets, concentrating on the interests of long-term investors. Under his leadership, the SEC updated dozens of rules and regulations, many that had not been revised in decades. Mr. Clayton’s team pursued an effective, investor-oriented enforcement program that obtained the highest and second highest (FY 2020, FY 2019) financial remedies and, importantly, returned $3.5 billion to harmed investors.

The SEC also addressed various market developments and emerging risks, including the digitization of assets and financial transactions, the COVID-19 economic shock, the Brexit and LIBOR transitions, and various cybersecurity matters. He was an active member of the Financial Stability Board, the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.

Prior to Mr. Clayton’s time at the SEC, he was a member of Sullivan & Cromwell’s management committee, co-managing partner of its General Practice Group and co-head of its Cybersecurity Group. He was a lead lawyer in an array of complex M&A and capital markets transactions, as well as regulatory and governance matters, in the financial, telecoms, energy, transportation and ecommerce sectors. Mr. Clayton also advised a number of individuals and families in connection with their public and private investments and succession planning matters.

Mr. Clayton earned a BS in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania (summa cum laude), a BA and MA in Economics from The University of Cambridge (Kings College; Thouron Scholar) and a JD from The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (cum laude; Order of the coif).