Stanford • NVCA Venture Capital Symposium 2020
Steven E. Bochner
Partner, WSGR
In his more than 35 years of experience practicing corporate and securities law, Steve Bochner has served as lead counsel for many of Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies, assisting them in venture capital, public offering, and merger transactions valued in the billions of dollars. He also has represented numerous start-up companies, as well as major venture capital and investment banking firms.
From 2009 to 2012, Steve served as the chief executive officer of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. During his tenure as CEO, the firm achieved record financial results and completed a number of significant strategic initiatives, including opening offices and expanding operations in China, Brussels, and Delaware. Steve is currently a member of the firm’s board of directors and has served in various other management positions at WSGR, including as chair of its Compensation Committee.
Steve was recently elected to a second term as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s board of directors. He is also the chairman of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. From 2015 to 2017, Steve served as the chair of the executive committee of the Northwestern Securities Regulation Institute in San Diego, where he is a frequent speaker. He currently serves as a member of the Institute’s executive committee. In addition, he regularly speaks on a variety of securities law topics for the Practising Law Institute (PLI) and was co-chair of PLI’s Annual Institute on Securities Regulation in New York City from 2007 to 2011.
Steve served as one of two attorneys on the IPO Task Force, which presented a report to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on improving access to the capital markets for emerging growth companies. He was extensively involved in designing the IPO-related provisions of the JOBS Act of 2012, which drew upon the IPO Task Force’s recommendations and was adopted by Congress with broad bipartisan support.
Steve is chairman of the Nasdaq Private Market advisory board and a member of the board of directors of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco. From 1996 to 2011, Steve served on the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, including as chair and co-chair. The council is responsible for making recommendations to the Nasdaq board on policy and rule changes related to issuer listing standards. In particular, Steve was extensively engaged in the development of Nasdaq’s rules with respect to corporate governance reform and other listing standards.
In 2005, Steve was appointed as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies. This select committee was charged with evaluating the current securities regulatory system relating to governance, disclosure, financial reporting, internal controls, and capital formation for smaller public companies, including the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The SEC Advisory Committee’s final report was delivered to the SEC on April 23, 2006. Steve served as chairman of the Governance and Disclosure Subcommittee of the SEC Advisory Committee. Many of the Advisory Committee’s recommendations have since been adopted as proposed and final rule changes by the SEC.
From 2002 to 2009, Steve was a lecturer on corporate and securities law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he designed and taught the “Venture Capital and IPO Law” course. He also has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Steve has published many articles in the areas of securities law, disclosure, and governance.
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