William Jannace

William “Bill” Jannace has over 30 years of professional experience in the securities industry, having held positions at the American and New York Stock Exchanges and FINRA as well as being an adjunct professor, instructor and lecturer at various schools of higher learning, both domestically and abroad. This article represents the views and opinions of the author and does not reflect the views of any organization he is associated with or any banking or securities regulator. He is an adjunct professor at Fordham School of Law, Baruch College-CUNY, Georgetown Global Education Institute, Wharton Business School, U.S. Army War College, and Metropolitan College. He has delivered courses to 11 schools over the past 20 years. His main areas of expertise include Broker-Dealer, Investment Company, and Adviser Regulation; Efficient Market Theory; Proxy Rules; M & A and Tender Offers; Corporate Governance; Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) and Impact Investing Sovereign Wealth Funds; State Capitalism, and Geopolitics/Geo-Economics. Bill was the Director and Counsel of FINRA’s (f/k/a NYSE Regulation) Sales Practice Policy department responding to interpretive, policy and disposition requests. He supervised a staff of professionals responsible for writing rules and amendments to rules and providing interpretive guidance to NYSE and FINRA staff and members regarding sales practice rules. Bill also coordinated policy responses to new products and services (e.g., Private IPO market, bank sweeps) and business models (crowd funding). In his FINRA career, Bill participated in the Regulatory Expert program regarding Research, AML, MSRB and Internal Controls violations as well as participated in FINRA-industry committee meetings and industry outreach programs and supporting FINRA-IOSCO initiatives and its MOUs with foreign regulators. Before joining FINRA, Bill was an Enforcement Attorney with the American Stock Exchange, where he concentrated on broker-dealer regulatory and compliance issues, and options and equity sales practice and trading violations. Previously, he worked with the Legal-Compliance Departments of TD Securities and Smith Barney providing legal advice on Regulation D/S offerings/144A/144 resales/10b-18 share buybacks; Offering Memorandums/Underwriting and Prime Brokerage Agreements; and ensuring trade reporting/Control Room/employee/firm trading compliance. When Bill was an account executive at Georgeson & Co. and D.F. King & Co., Inc. – proxy-solicitation firms – he liaised for corporations and institutional shareholders regarding corporate governance issues and proxy fights; and liaised with trading floor and arbitrageurs to provide market color to listed companies. In addition to his work in the US, Bill has participated in several training programs for foreign stock exchanges and lectured abroad, including seminars for the Russian Securities Commission and Stock Exchange; Kenyan Capital Markets Authority; East African Securities Regulatory Authority; Saudi Arabian Capital Markets Authority; Taiwan Stock Exchange; and several other international authorities and securities commissions. He is also involved in the social-philanthropy/impact investment market in the Balkans, Caucasus and other countries in East Africa and the Middle East.