Cleary Gottlieb Names 30 New Partners and Counsel

Cleary Gottlieb has promoted 26 partners and four counsel, effective January 1, 2025.

The promotions will bring the firm’s total worldwide partners to 212 and counsel to 50.

“When it comes to our firm’s ability to serve clients, there is no greater asset than our people,” said Cleary Managing Partner Michael Gerstenzang. “These new partners and counsel reflect our long tradition of excellence in client service, and have demonstrated the creativity, pragmatic acumen and skills to address the most complicated client needs.”

“We congratulate these talented lawyers. They represent our firm’s commitment to continued growth, innovation and adaptability, while maintaining the values and culture that are at the core of our organization.”

The new partners and counsel represent the firm’s geographic reach, residing in Abu Dhabi, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Rome and Washington, D.C. offices. Their practice areas include antitrust, banking and financial institutions, bankruptcy and restructuring, capital markets, capital solutions, debt finance, executive compensation and benefits, financial regulation, foreign investment, litigation and arbitration, mergers and acquisitions, private funds and tax.

New partners:

• Emily Alfano (New York/Private Funds) ― Emily focuses on the organization and operation of private investments funds, including private equity, growth, credit, royalty, and venture funds. She also represents private fund sponsors in co-investment arrangements and limited partners in their investments in private funds.
• Alexander Argyris (New York/Private Funds) ― Alex’s areas of experience include all aspects of the organization and operation of private investment funds, including credit, private equity, venture, and growth funds. He also represents private fund sponsors in co-investment arrangements, as well as limited partners in their investments in private funds and investors in GP-led and other secondaries transactions.
• Tom Bednar (Washington, D.C./Litigation and Arbitration) ― Tom’s experience includes securities enforcement and litigation, white-collar criminal defense and complex commercial litigation. He represents companies, corporate boards, audit committees and individual executives in investigations conducted by the SEC, DOJ, CFTC, FTC, FINRA, and State Attorneys General. Prior to joining Cleary, Tom spent 13 years in the federal government, first as a federal prosecutor and then as Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel and Supervisory Trial Counsel at the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
• Samuel Chang (Washington, D.C./Foreign Investment and National Security) ― Sam’s practice focuses on cross-border regulatory compliance and enforcement, including matters relating to economic sanctions, export controls, CFIUS, and global foreign direct investment. He has represented leading companies, sovereign and state-owned entities, and individuals in high-stakes transactions and complex regulatory and enforcement matters before OFAC, CFIUS, the Bureau of Industry and Security, the U.S. Departments of Justice and State, and other regulators, as well as sensitive internal investigations.
• Synne D. Chapman (New York/Capital Markets) ― Synne focuses on domestic and international corporate and financial transactions, particularly capital markets transactions, disclosure and corporate governance. She works with both issuers and underwriters on various public and private securities offerings and has experience advising clients on corporate governance, securities laws, and SEC disclosure matters.
• Swift Edgar (New York/Tax) ― Swift’s practice focuses on U.S. federal income tax matters. He advises on a variety of tax aspects of corporate and partnership transactions, including taxable and tax-free mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and spin-offs, and private equity matters.
• Chris Gollop (London/M&A) ― Chris’ practice focuses on a broad range of transactional mandates for sophisticated international private equity and corporate clients. His experience includes advising on acquisitions and disposals, and complex equity financings and joint ventures in a range of sectors from healthcare to financial services/asset management, as well as advising on investee company matters during the PE investment life cycle (including bolt-on transactions and management incentivization plans).
• Jens Hafemann (Frankfurt/Tax) ― Jens’ experience includes all aspects of tax law and corporate transactions. He regularly advises on the tax law aspects of international and national mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions as well as reorganizations, and regularly represents clients in tax controversy matters.
• Cunzhen Huang (Washington, D.C./Antitrust) ― Cunzhen focuses on competition/antitrust law. She regularly represents major multinational corporations and executives in complex investigations with a focus on China and other Asia-Pacific jurisdictions, and has published articles on competition law, contributed to antitrust treatises, and worked with the ABA to provide comments to international antitrust agencies regarding draft antitrust rules.
• Joseph Kay (New York/Antitrust) ― Joe’s experience includes all aspects of antitrust litigation matters, including criminal and civil government investigations and complex civil litigation. He represents domestic and international clients in federal and state courts, as well as in government investigations.
• Anna Kogan (New York/Debt Finance) ― Anna focuses on corporate and financial transactions, with emphasis on the representation of private equity firms in connection with debt financings for their private equity, credit, real estate, and other investment funds. She also has considerable experience in fund-level, management company, and holding company financings.
• Romi Lepetska (Brussels/Antitrust) ― Romi’s areas of experience include all aspects of EU, Dutch and Belgian competition law and FDI control. She advises on a wide range of antitrust issues, including complex EU and international merger control proceedings, restrictive practices, Dutch FDI control, and the EU foreign subsidy regulation.
• Samuel Levander (New York/Litigation and Arbitration) ― Sam’s practice focuses on civil litigation and enforcement. He regularly represents clients in complex multi-jurisdictional disputes and investigations and has extensive experience in the digital assets industry.
• Frederic Martin (London; Paris/Capital Markets) ― Frederic’s practice covers the full range of international equity and debt capital markets transactions. He has particularly extensive experience in IPOs, capital raises, spin-offs, bank regulatory capital and debt (MREL/TLAC-eligible) offerings, high-yield bond offerings, SEC-registered transactions and offerings by French issuers.
• Bernardo Massella (Rome/Banking and Financial Institutions) ― Bernardo focuses on a combination of Italian and EU contentious and advisory financial regulatory matters and domestic and cross-border crisis management. His experience includes regulatory enforcement, internal investigations, and white-collar and commercial litigation involving financial institutions and clients in other sectors.
• Blair (Kuykendall) Matthews (Washington, D.C./Antitrust) ― Blair’s experience includes a wide range of antitrust matters, particularly in mergers and acquisitions and government investigations. She represents both public and private companies across multiple industries, including consumer products, healthcare, industrials, and technology, in merger and other investigations by the DOJ, FTC, and state antitrust authorities, among others.
• John Messent (London/Antitrust) ― John’s practice includes all aspects of UK and EU competition law, as well as the UK’s national security and public interest regimes and global foreign investment rules. He has represented clients before the UK Competition Authority, the European Commission, the UK Investment Security Unit, UK sectoral regulators, and the UK and EU courts.
• Vladimir Novak (Brussels/Antitrust) ― Vlad focuses on competition law/antitrust and EU and global foreign direct investment control. His experience includes complex merger control proceedings, cartel investigations, abuse of dominance cases, antitrust counseling, and litigation before EU courts, as well as a wide range of issues under EU law and sports-related matters.
• Kelsey Nussenfeld (New York/M&A) ― Kelsey’s experiences include all aspects of corporate and financial transactions, particularly public and private mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance matters. She has significant experience in both cross-border and domestic transactions across a variety of industries and sectors, including business services, consumer products, chemicals, healthcare and technology.
• Alexis Raguet (Paris/Capital Markets; Corporate/M&A) ― Alexis’ practice focuses on capital markets and corporate M&A matters. His experience includes capital market transactions, corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions.
• Ferdisha Snagg (London/Banking and Financial Institutions) ― Ferdisha focuses on financial services and private funds regulation. She regularly advises banks, alternative asset managers and market infrastructures on a wide range of complex and evolving financial regulatory matters, including ESG and sustainable finance-related matters.
• Hugues Tabardel (Paris/M&A) ― Hugues’ practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions and corporate matters. His experience includes mergers and acquisitions, corporate and private equity matters.
• Mohamed Taha (Abu Dhabi/Capital Markets) ― Mohamed’s experience includes all aspects of equity and debt capital markets, liability management transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters. He is also a co-founder of 10BE5 Ltd., a legal tech start-up that develops capital markets-focused software solutions in collaboration with Cleary.
• Carina Wallance (New York/Capital Solutions, Special Situations and Restructuring) ― With extensive experience in special situations and restructuring, Carina’s practice focuses on capital solutions for corporate and financial institution clients. She has expertise in corporate, leveraged, distressed and project financings as well as extensive experience working in the U.S. and various emerging markets, including Latin America.
• Shuangjun Wang (New York/Capital Markets) ― Shuangjun’s experience includes all aspects of capital markets transactions, corporate governance and corporate advisory work, with a focus on ESG and sustainability matters. She works with both issuers and underwriters on various public and private securities offerings, including initial public offerings, and regularly advises corporate clients on corporate governance, proxy season matters, securities laws and stock exchange rules, SEC disclosures, and ESG and sustainability matters.
• Biyuan Zhang (Hong Kong/Capital Markets) ― Biyuan focuses on corporate and financial institution representations. Her experience includes capital markets transactions in the U.S. and Hong Kong, corporate governance and regulatory compliance advice.

New counsel:

• Victor Chiu (New York/Debt Finance) ― Victor focuses on commercial financing, including specialties in secured transactions and leveraged finance. He advises clients on acquisition financing, refinancing and restructuring transactions, and other financings, including syndicated credit facilities, direct lending transactions and private equity investments.
• Jérôme Hartemann (Paris/Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits) ― Jérôme’s areas of experience include all aspects of employment law, especially in the context of cross-border and domestic public and private mergers and acquisitions. He also has extensive experience with all labor and employment law matters in the context of corporate restructurings, including the transfer of undertakings and matters relating to hiring and termination of senior executives.
• Stéphanie Patureau (Paris/Antitrust) ― Stéphanie focuses on EU and French competition law. She has extensive experience advising clients on merger control regulations, including complex, multijurisdictional transactions, as well as in international cartels and anticompetitive agreements, abuse of dominance, and regulated sectors.
• Sophia Yuan (New York/Private Funds) ― Sophia’s areas of experience includes all aspects of corporate and financial transactions and private fund formation. She advises fund managers and institutional investors on fund formations and has experience representing private equity secondary investors and fund managers on secondary transactions and other hybrid private equity transactions.