Stanford DAO Symposium
William H. Hinman
Based in Washington, D.C., Bill Hinman is a Senior Advisor in the Firm’s Corporate Department. He focuses on corporate finance, representing both issuers and underwriters in capital-raising transactions and corporate acquisitions, and advising public companies and their boards, including special committees. He has also represented boards of directors and their audit committees on a number of corporate governance matters. In addition, his work includes derivatives, novel securities and private placements.
Bill has extensive experience across an array of industries, including technology, e-commerce, healthcare, digital assets and life sciences. He had a lead role in a large number of significant initial public offerings, including those of Alibaba, Facebook, Google, eBay, Square, Agilent, Seagate and VMware.
Bill returned to Simpson Thacher in 2020 after serving as the Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. Bill joined the SEC in 2017 and led the Division on a wide range of issues vital to the success of the nation’s capital markets, including spearheading nearly 50 policy and rulemaking initiatives designed to strengthen public markets, enhance protections for “Main Street” investors and broaden access to capital markets for small businesses, among many other areas. He also oversaw the Division’s efforts to modernize and improve the framework for securities offerings and public company disclosures, streamline the initial public offering review process, address the large increase in SPAC offerings, reduce unnecessary compliance costs and tailor public company requirements for all issuers, leading to substantial benefits for investors and public market participants.
During his tenure at the SEC, Bill also spearheaded the agency’s efforts to harmonize the exempt offering framework, which culminated in a wide range of changes designed to rationalize the regulation of private offerings. He also provided critical and timely guidance to market participants on emerging issues ranging from innovations such as direct listings and digital assets and novel offerings such as direct listings and special purpose acquisition offerings to questions arising from the impact of COVID-19, the effects of Brexit, the replacement of LIBOR and the disclosure risks related to foreign issuers and emerging markets. Bill also led the Division’s efforts to improve the efficiency and integrity of the proxy process, leading to rule changes by the Commission that help promote transparency for clients of proxy voting advice businesses.
Bill received his J.D. from Cornell University Law School in 1980, where he was a member of the Editorial Board of the Cornell Law Review, and his B.A. from Michigan State University, with honors, in 1977. He is a member of the Bar Association of the State of New York. Bill has taught Securities Law classes at both the Stanford Law School and Berkeley Law at the University of California. Bill is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Source: Simpson Thacher website
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