Adé Heyliger is a partner in Weil’s public company advisory group and a member of the firm’s sustainability and environment, social, and governance (ESG) advisory group. He regularly advises public and private companies on a full range of corporate governance, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting, compliance, and general corporate and securities matters.

In his practice, Adé routinely advises boards of directors and board committees on various governance matters, including internal investigations, leadership structures, self-assessments, independence determinations, executive compensation and succession planning, and ESG and sustainability matters. Adé counsels companies on sensitive matters, including crisis management, internal controls, accounting irregularities, and shareholder activism related matters such as proxy contests and shareholder proposals and engagement. Adé also provides day-to-day guidance on a variety of regulatory and rulemaking developments.

At Weil, Adé serves as co-chair of the global diversity committee. He also has an active not-for-profit governance practice and has worked with many of the firm’s pro bono clients, including the Innocence Project.

Prior to joining Weil, Adé served in the SEC’s division of corporation finance, providing interpretive advice on domestic and cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, going-private transactions, proxy contests and shareholder proposals, and disclosure guidance concerning various SEC filings. Before the SEC, Adé worked in the investment banking division at Merrill Lynch, focusing on transactions in the telecommunications, media, and technology sectors.

Adé has been recognized by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) as part of its Directorship 100, a list of the most influential people in the boardroom, and was elected as a fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel. He has lectured extensively on corporate governance, SEC disclosure requirements, and regulatory and rulemaking developments, and he is a regular contributor to Weil’s blog, Governance & Securities Watch (blog). Adé is an active member of the NACD Climate Advisory Council and Compensation Committee Advisory Council, as well as The Conference Board’s Human Capital Management Committee. He has served as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where more than 100 members of the SEC Staff via the SEC University Program attended his class. Adé is a former chair of the Federal Regulation of Securities: Proxy Statements and Business Combinations Subcommittee of the American Bar Association and a former co-chair of the DC Bar Association’s mergers and acquisitions committee.

Adé is widely recognized for his work, including as a Leading Lawyer for Securities: Regulation: Advisory by Chambers USA, where clients note he is “an expert” who is “plugged in and has broad experience”; as a Leading Lawyer for Corporate Governance and Shareholder Activism: Advice to Boards by Legal 500 US, where he is described as a “standout practitioner”; for M&A and Governanceby Who’s Who Legal; and as a Best Lawyer for Securities Regulation in Washington, DC by Best Lawyers in America. He was named among Savoy magazine’s Most Influential Black Lawyers and shortlisted as Diversity & Inclusion: Lawyer of the Year for the Chambers Diversity & Inclusion Awards: North America.

Adé holds a juris doctor, cum laude from Harvard Law School and a master of business administration in finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He received a bachelor of science in finance, cum laude from the University of Maryland.