Ren茅e听Jones is Professor and听Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School. Her courses include Corporations, Securities Regulation, Startup Company Governance, and Financial Regulation. Jones served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the law school from 2018 to 2021.听听
From 2021 to 2023, Jones served as the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As Division Director, Jones led a team of more than 400 lawyers, accountants and analysts charged with interpreting, implementing and ensuring compliance with the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and related statutory provisions. She oversaw the implementation of Commission鈥檚 rulemaking agenda, including the drafting of proposed and final rules covering topics including the disclosure of climate-related risks, cybersecurity risks, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), insider trading, executive compensation, shareholder voting. She also oversaw the Division鈥檚 Disclosure Review Program to ensure corporate compliance with SEC disclosure requirements, handling issues ranging from disclosure by China-based issuer and climate-related risk disclosure, to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on corporate issuers.听
In 2025, Jones was appointed a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), a global network of corporate governance and finance scholars. Her scholarship focuses on securities regulation, corporate governance, startup financing, and the federal-state relationship in corporate regulation. A frequent commentator on corporate and securities law issues, Jones has appeared at conferences at universities and professional organizations across the country and abroad, including Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, Sorbonne University (Paris), and the London School of Economics.
Her article, "," published in the听University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online, highlights the risks posed by the increasing number of unicorns (startup companies valued at $1 billion or more) to investors, employees, consumers, and society. In 2019, Jones testified on this topic before the Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets of the House Financial Services Committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission鈥檚 Investor Advisory Committee. She explores these issues in depth in her forthcoming book,听, which will be published by Harvard University Press in August 2026.
Jones has been听a Visiting Fellow at New York University Law School, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law and the Sorbonne University in Paris. From 2005-2006, she was the Eugene P. Beard Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University鈥檚 Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. In 2010, she received the Faculty Award for Inspirational Achievement from the Boston College Law Business & Law Society.
Among her many professional and community activities, Jones is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Law and Economic Policy, and the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Forum on Corporate Climate Governance. She has also served on the Governing Committee of the Massachusetts Medical Malpractice Reinsurance Plan, and is a member of American Law Institute. In addition, she has served as a member of the American Bar Association鈥檚 House of Delegates,听Human Rights Magazine's听editorial board,听and New England Committee of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and has co-chaired the Boston Bar Association鈥檚 Securities Law Committee.
Before joining AV研究所 Law in 2002, Jones practiced for eight years at the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow, where she represented private and public companies on corporate and securities matters. Jones received her AB degree from Princeton University and her JD,听cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
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