S&C is proud to sponsor the WCD Global Institute event on May 19-22 in Silicon Valley, and S&C partners Rita-Anne O’Neill and Sarah Payne will be featured speakers.
 
On May 20, Sarah will debate legislated quotas on a panel titled, “Do Legislated Quotas Work; Should the U.S. Continue to Adopt Them?” On May 21, Rita will moderate the panel “Culture Shock – Board Oversight in a #MeToo Era.”
 
Recognized by The Times as “Lawyer of the Week” for her role advising the underwriters in Alibaba’s initial public offering, Sarah is co-head of the Firm’s Capital Markets practice and the Technology M&A and Finance Group. Sarah has a broad-based corporate practice advising clients on a wide range of transactions, focusing on public and private company mergers and acquisitions and public and private securities offerings. She is also active in the Firm’s Corporate Governance practice and advises clients on their continuing reporting obligations, Sarbanes-Oxley processes and other general corporate matters. Sarah has been named to the Daily Journal’s list of the Top 100 Women Lawyers in California and Top 100 Lawyers in California and recognized as a “Rising Star” in M&A by ILFR1000 and a Rising Star: Finance by Euromoney. Sarah is a frequent speaker and author, and a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, where she teaches a course on International Securities Regulation.
 
Rita has a broad-based practice that includes advising both U.S. and non-U.S. public and private companies on some of their most significant mergers and acquisitions transactions, joint ventures and securities offerings, as well as providing general corporate advice on disclosure and governance. Rita also serves as co-chair of the ABA’s Women in M&A Subcommittee, co-chair of the ABA’s Acquisition of Public Companies Subcommittee and former chair of its M&A Market Trends Subcommittee and its Deal Points Study on Carveout Transactions. She is a frequent speaker at WCD BoardNext events in Los Angeles and regularly participates on panels regarding gender diversity and women in the legal profession. Rita is regularly featured in national publications for her work on industry-shaping deals and gender diversity in the field. She was recently profiled in The Deal’s Women in M&A series, including in the article “Cracking the Glass Ceiling.” She has been named a “Rising Star” by IFLR1000 and Euromoney and has been recognized among the Daily Journal’s Top Women Lawyers and the Profiles in Diversity Journal’s Women Worth Watching, and by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the Women Making a Difference in Los Angeles.