Conversations with Bob Mundheim Speaker Series with National Leaders in Business and Law to Begin on January 27
The annual speaker series from Professor of Corporate Law and Finance Robert Mundheim, Conversations with Bob Mundheim returns this semester and welcomes its first guest on Monday, January 27.
Mundheim moderates informal conversations with national leaders in business and law, relating their experiences in and perspectives about corporate governance, markets, ethics, and career development. The series is free and open to the public and will be of particular interest to law and business students.
All sessions take place noon-1:15 p.m. at Arizona Law, space is limited, registration is required. Please RSVP to Mary Steed at marywsteed@arizona.edu to reserve your spot.
2025 Schedule
January 27: Edward Rock
The Martin Lipton Professor of Law at NYU Law, Edward Rock’s main areas of teaching and research are corporate law and corporate governance. In his many articles, he has written about poison pills, politics and corporate law, hedge funds, corporate voting, proxy access, corporate federalism and mergers and acquisitions, among other things. In addition to teaching and research, he is the director of NYU’s Institute for Corporate Governance & Finance and the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law of Corporate Governance. Rock spent the first part of his teaching career at the University of Pennsylvania where he served as Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Economics (1998–2010), as Associate Dean (2006–08), and as Senior Advisor to the President and Provost and Director of Open Course Initiatives (2012–15)
February 17: Byron Boston
Byron Boston is CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Dynex Capital, a leading Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) with more than $5 billion in managed assets. Over the past 15 years, he has built Dynex Capital into a top-performing mortgage REIT that has outperformed the S&P 500 Financials, FTSE NAREIT, and Russell 2000 Indexes. Previously, he held several executive leadership positions in real estate finance, asset management, and investment banking, successfully building two public companies. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Boston served as vice president and co-manager of Freddie Mac and held positions dealing with mortgage-backed and pass-through securities at global financial institutions including Lehman Brothers and CS First Boston.
February 24: Bob Hoyt
Bob Hoyt is Group Chief Legal Officer of HSBC Holdings PLC. From 2013 to 2020 he was at Barclays PLC, where he served as Group General Counsel, overseeing global engagement with regulators and policymakers, as well as all legal issues at the bank. Prior to that, he was General Counsel and Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer for Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group, leading its legal, government and regulatory matters. Between 2006 and 2009, he served as General Counsel and a Senior Policy Advisor to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He also served as Special Assistant and Associate Counsel to U.S. President George W. Bush. At the start of his career, Hoyt clerked at the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
March 3: Simon M. Lorne
Simon Lorne serves as the vice chairman and chief legal officer at Millennium Management, LLC, overseeing its compliance, legal, regulatory, and internal audit functions. Previously, Lorne served as a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson. In 1996, he became a managing director at Salomon Brothers, where he served as global head of Internal Audit. From 1993 to 1996, Lorne was the general counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He is an independent director of Teledyne Technologies Inc., and Chairman of the Alternative Investment Management Association. He is a member of the American Law Institute and serves as an Adviser to the Restatement of the Law of Corporate Governance
March 17: Greg Varallo
Greg Varallo spent the first three decades of his career as a defense lawyer practicing at the Delaware firm of Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A. In 2019 he moved to an investor side firm and opened the Delaware office of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, where he serves as managing partner. Since joining BLB&G, he has led several successful trial efforts, including the 2022 challenge to Elon Musk’s $55 billion compensation package, which the court ordered rescinded after trial. Varallo has co-authored three books on the topic of corporate governance. He has also published numerous articles, lectured throughout the United States, and is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American College of Governance Counsel
March 31: John J. Cannon III
John Cannon is a senior member of the Compensation, Governance and ERISA Group and co-chair of Shearman & Sterling’s Corporate Governance Advisory Group. In his practice, he focuses on all aspects of compensation and benefits, including ERISA and corporate, securities, bankruptcy, employment, and tax laws. He has extensive experience in executive compensation and corporate governance matters, Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley, and the compensation issues raised in the mergers and acquisitions context. Cannon joined Shearman & Sterling in 1985 and became a partner in 1994. He is a member of the American Law Institute and serves as an Adviser to the Restatement of the Law of Corporate Governance
April 7: Eric F. Grossman
Eric F. Grossman is Morgan Stanley’s Chief Legal Officer and Chief Administrative Officer and a member of the firm’s operating and management committees. As Chief Administrative Officer he is responsible for Community Affairs, Corporate Affairs, Global Sustainable Finance, and the Multicultural Client Strategy Group. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2006 as global head of litigation, he was a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He clerked for the Honorable Richard J. Cardamone, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, from 1993 to 1994. He is the president of the board of directors of Advocates for Children of New York. He also co-chairs the New York State Business Council for Access to Justice and is a vice chair of the Serve America Movement.
April 14: Michael J. Sharp
Michael J. Sharp has been Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Jefferies Financial Group Inc., parent company of Jefferies Group LLC, since March 2013. He has been Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Jefferies since September 2010. Previously, he was a partner with the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, as well as General Counsel of Citigroup’s Global Wealth Management, Global Consumer Bank and Global Credit Card business units. Before his 12 years at Citigroup, Sharp was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Sharp began his legal career as a judicial clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Before embarking on a legal career, he traded U.S. Treasury Bonds from 1981 through 1988.