Remarks to the SEC Investor Advisory Committee

Thank you, Chairman Clayton and Commissioner Jackson, for the welcoming remarks. Thank you, Anne [Sheehan], and thanks to the Committee for having me.

This Committee has been active for almost ten years now (if you count its prior iteration). That’s a decade’s worth of expertise, advice, and recommendations on issues important to investors. Your efforts have influenced the SEC’s policies and helped to guide its priorities. Investors, issuers, markets, and the public have benefitted from your skill and dedication.

The agenda today provides a good example of why this is the case. Your topics are timely, important, and complex. I look forward to this morning’s panel discussion on Regulation in Areas of Limited Competition. This is complicated terrain and worthy of your attention.

The same goes for your draft recommendation on the impacts of MiFID II. I appreciate the thoughtful approach in laying out guiding principles, including the attention to the important issue of transparency for investors. We can improve quality and competition in the market for research by ensuring that solutions emphasize transparency—transparency about who pays for research, how much they pay, and how those who pay may benefit. I look forward to the Committee’s recommendation and the Commission’s continued consideration of this topic, which I hope will build on the bedrock principles of transparency and investor choice.

I also appreciate your attention to proxy plumbing issues, and I’m very pleased to see renewed attention regarding Universal Proxy Ballots and ensuring that all shareholders have equal rights when voting for board candidates.

Finally, I see that you will be hearing from Martha Legg Miller of the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation and Pamela Gibbs of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. I look forward to working with both of their offices in the future on their important efforts to expand access to opportunities in the markets.

This Committee has always undertaken its mission with intellectual rigor, seriousness of purpose, and a deep commitment to the interests and protection of investors. I thank you sincerely for that and for your valuable time and expertise.