Holly J. Gregory counsels clients on the full range of governance issues, including fiduciary duties, risk oversight, conflicts of interest, board and committee structure, board leadership structures, audit committee investigations, board audits and self-evaluation processes, shareholder initiatives, proxy contests, relationships with shareholders and proxy advisory firms, compliance with legislative, regulatory and listing rule requirements, and governance “best practice.” Representative clients include Comverse Technology, The Ford Foundation, J. C. Penney, Pfizer, Prudential Financial, TE Connectivity, and Westinghouse Electric.
Ms. Gregory played a key role in drafting the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance and has advised the Internal Market Directorate of the European Commission on corporate governance regulation, and the joint OECD/World Bank Global Corporate Governance Forum on governance policy for developing and emerging markets.
In addition to her legal practice and policy efforts, Ms. Gregory has helped organize governance-related programs for the SEC, OECD, World Bank, Yale’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, and Transparency International, among others. She has lectured extensively on governance topics, including at events in Europe and Asia sponsored by the U.S. State Department, International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), The Conference Board, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Association of Corporate Counsel, Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals, and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). The author of numerous articles on governance topics, she writes the monthly governance column for Practical Law: The Journal.
Ms. Gregory is founding co-chair of the ABA Business Law Section’s Subcommittee on International Corporate Governance Developments and serves by invitation on the ABA Corporate Laws Committee. She co-chaired the ABA task force that issued the 6th edition of the ABA Corporate Directors Guidebook (April 2011) and chaired the ABA task force that delivered the Report on the Delineation of Governance Roles & Responsibilities to Congress and the SEC in August, 2009. She is currently Vice-Chair of the ABA's Corporate Governance Committee. Ms. Gregory is a member of the NACD’s director education faculty and has served on a number of the NACD’s Blue Ribbon Commissions. She has served as pro bono counsel to the New York City Opera, the New York Junior League, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other not for profit institutions.
A summa cum laude graduate of, and former executive editor of the Law Review at, New York Law School, Ms. Gregory served as a law clerk to the Honorable Roger J. Miner, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, before joining Weil. Ms. Gregory served on the Board of Trustees of New York Law School from 2009 through 2011.
Ms. Gregory is widely recognized for her governance work, including most recently as: the best in Corporate Governance at Euromoney Legal Media Group’s inaugural Americas Women in Business Law Awards 2012; the leading practitioner in corporate governance law in the Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law (July 2010); among the “100 Most Influential Players in Corporate Governance” (NACD/Directorship 100), Directorship Magazine, 2012 and prior years; and a “Leading Practitioner in Corporate Governance” in The International Who's Who of Corporate Governance Lawyers, 2012 and prior years.