Mellissa Campbell Duru advises clients on U.S. securities regulation, capital markets transactions, and strategic corporate governance planning. She develops advisory guidance for public companies and asset managers on environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) matters, cybersecurity incident response and preparedness, and public company disclosure and reporting obligations.
Mellissa joined the firm after over 15 years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) where she served as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Kara Stein and in a range of transactional and policy advisory roles in the Division of Corporation Finance and Division of Examinations.
As Special Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance’s Office of Mergers & Acquisitions (“OMA”), Mellissa led OMA reviews of shareholder activist campaigns, registered business combination transactions, proxy contests, and negotiated and hostile domestic and cross-border tender offers. Her work in OMA also involved advice on beneficial ownership reporting obligations by stakeholders, rulemaking petitions, no-action and exemptive relief requests, going private transactions, and proxy and consent solicitations.
As Counsel to SEC Commissioner Kara Stein, Mellissa was the lead advisor on ESG U.S. and international framework developments, including sustainable finance reporting and investment matters, cybersecurity, data privacy and governance issues, initial token offerings, distributed ledger and financial technology developments, capital formation and exempt offering rulemakings, and SEC advisory committee matters. She also advised Commissioner Stein on implementation of the disclosure mandates of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, implementation of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, and implementation of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
Most recently, in the Division of Examinations’ Technology Controls Program, Mellissa served as a cybersecurity legal policy advisor to the SEC Chairman’s office and the Office of International Affairs on U.S. and international financial sector cybersecurity incidents, incident response, preparedness and coordination, and data privacy laws applicable to SEC-registered entities and financial market infrastructure firms.
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