Emme Devonish

Emme Devonish is Senior Compliance Counsel and engages with leading organizations on program assessments, benchmarking, and roundtables on insights into ethics and compliance issues for our clients and the BELA community. Additionally, she is a Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional and a SHRM Certified Professional. She maintains a license to practice law in the State of New York and retired from the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2012.

She began her career as an Attorney-Adviser at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Later she worked as a Director in the Compliance Department at The Prudential Insurance Company of America and then as a Vice President at Nomura IBJ Global Investment Advisors before joining the Corporate Department at Kelley Drye & Warren as a Senior Associate.

Her knowledge of securities law and regulatory compliance best practices led her to several high-level project-based roles, including as International Legal Counsel at Crédit Lyonnais Asset Management and as Finance Counsel at the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations in Paris, France. Upon her return to the United States, she served as Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer at Transamerica Investment Management in Los Angeles, and thereafter formed her consulting practice, Creative Compliance Communication Services, LLC.

Emme is a Lecturer in Law in the Master of Legal Studies in Corporate Compliance program at the Santa Clara University School of Law and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Film Production and Media Studies at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State. She is certified in Distance Education and has taught online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses in Law, Communication, English, Literature, Writing, and Film at various universities across the United States and abroad.

She holds Ph.D. in Film Studies from The University of Sydney, a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Carlow University, a J.D/M.A. in Law and International Affairs from The American University, and a B.A. in French and International Relations from Syracuse University.