Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I regret very much that I could not join you this morning at the start of the meeting. Unfortunately, contemporaneous official business prevented me from attending the opening remarks portion of today’s program. However, I could not let this quarterly gathering pass by without taking a few moments to express my sincere gratitude for your continued and spirited service.
I will keep my remarks brief, as I know that for many of you, the only thing standing between you and your flight home is me—save DC traffic, of course. And although they will be few, I must still note the customary disclaimer that the views I express here today are my own as Chairman and do not necessarily reflect those of the SEC as an institution or of my fellow Commissioners.
To begin, I should especially like to recognize those of you for whom today marks your first IAC meeting as new members. Patrick [Daugherty], John [Liu], Sheldon [Ray], and Adriana [Robertson], you have joined an esteemed group whose collective expertise and perspectives make this Committee an indispensable partner in safeguarding investors and strengthening our markets—and now, your individual contributions will only augment this collaboration and the insights that arise from it. Serving the investing public with your time and talent is a worthy and high calling, so I very much commend your decision to answer it.
I would be remiss not to also take this moment to congratulate the new members of the IAC’s executive committee—and those of you serving in new positions within it. George [Georgiev], Andera [Seidt], Amy [McGarrity], and John [Gulliver], as well as the new subcommittee leaders, I am confident that your leadership will prove instrumental in advancing the critical work of this committee to fortify the foundations upon which our markets depend.
Indeed, the promise of your stewardship was already made evident in today’s meeting, during which you convened expert panels and considered several topics of great importance to investors and the Commission alike.
Your first panel this morning examined the investor protection challenges and opportunities presented by expanding retail access to private markets.
Embracing growth and innovation across all asset classes, and promoting orderly markets and investor protection, are not mutually exclusive aims; they are compatible goals. They must be treated not as adversaries, but as allies. Your perspectives on this issue will help inform how the Commission can meet both objectives as we consider our role in increasing exposure to the full dynamism of our capital markets.
The second panel today contemplated the increasing concentration of voting power in passive investment vehicles and its effects on investor protection.
Assessing—and, where warranted, addressing—how these passive vehicles vote, and the influence of proxy advisors on their vote, has been a priority under my leadership because of its profound implications for corporate governance, and, in the context of funds, for advisers’ fundamental fiduciary duty to act in their clients’ best interest. I will continue to emphasize that investment advisers, as fiduciaries, must vote client proxies in their client’s best interest and not their own.
Both of these discussions, I am certain, yielded valuable insights for which I am most grateful. And I look forward to engaging in the coming months on the consequential work explored today, as we continue to steer the SEC back to the bedrock fundamentals in which our mandate is rooted.
As we do so, I am grateful for the acumen and thoughtfulness that you bring to every Investor Advisory Committee meeting, always with investors’ interests foremost in mind.
Let me close by extending my special thanks to the Office of the Investor Advocate staff for their hard work in organizing this meeting. And congratulations, once again, to our new members and new executive committee. Thank you all for your time and engagement today. I look forward to the work ahead.
