Ren茅e M. Jones is Professor and Dr. Thomas F. Carney Distinguished Scholar at Boston College Law School.听 Her scholarship focuses on securities regulation, corporate law, corporate governance, startup financing, and the federal-state relationship in corporate regulation.听 She teaches corporations, securities regulation, startup company governance, and other business law courses, and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the law school from 2018 to 2021.
Jones is the author of the forthcoming book, (Harvard University Press). The book connects the most dramatic startup scandals, including FTX, Theranos, WeWork, and Uber, to flaws in the startup financing model.听 It shows how deregulatory reforms implemented by Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission over the past 40 years have eroded the core safeguards of the federal securities law, first established during the New Deal era.
From 2021 to 2023, Jones served as Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As Division Director, Jones led a team of more than 400 lawyers, accountants and other professionals charged with interpreting, implementing and ensuring compliance with the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and related statutory provisions. Jones oversaw the implementation of the Commission鈥檚 rulemaking agenda, including proposed and final rules covering the disclosure of climate-related risks, cybersecurity risks, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), insider trading, executive compensation, shareholder voting. Jones also oversaw the Division鈥檚 Disclosure Review Program to ensure corporate compliance with SEC disclosure requirements, handling such pressing issues as disclosure by China-based issuers, climate-related risk disclosure, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on corporate issuers.
A frequent commentator on corporate and securities law issues, Jones has spoken at universities and professional organizations across the country and abroad, including at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Minnesota, Sorbonne University (Paris), and the London School of Economics.听 She has also testified before Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission鈥檚 Investor Advisory Committee, and has presented her work to securities regulators in Hong Kong and Ontario, Canada.
In 2025, Jones was appointed a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), a global network of corporate governance and finance scholars.听 She has been 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, Human Rights Magazine's editorial board, 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 自慰视频 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, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she was an Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
