Christopher R. Conte — Partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Mr. Christopher (Chris) R. Conte has been a Partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP since September 2010. Mr. Conte served as an Associate Director of Enforcement at Securities and Exchange Commission from October 2006 until September 2010. Mr. Conte served as senior official in the Division and assisted in planning and directing the Commission's investigations and other enforcement efforts. He served as Assistant Director in the Commission's Division of Enforcement since 2000. Earlier, he served as a Branch Chief in the Division, after joining the Commission as a Staff Attorney. During his 14-year tenure at the Commission, Mr. Conte has overseen investigations in several major program areas. His work has contributed to significant Commission enforcement actions including option granting practices (former executives of Comverse Technologies, Inc.), abuses in connection with initial public offerings (J.P. Morgan Securities, Morgan Stanley Inc., and Robertson Stephens), public company accounting and disclosure (former executives of Waste Management, Inc.), e-mail retention and production (Morgan Stanley, Inc.), insider trading, fraud in the offer, sale, and promotion of the securities of micro-cap issuers, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, auditor independence and audit failures. Prior to joining the Commission in 1992, Mr. Conte was a litigation associate at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington, D.C. Mr. Conte received his BA from Brown University in 1983 and JD from Catholic University's Columbus School of Law in 1988.