Matthew Thornton Email & Phone Number

I've spent my career in financial services. Currently, I am Associate General Counsel with the fund industry’s leading trade association. I began my career as a financial consultant/CFP®, sitting at clients’ kitchen tables and learning about their goals. I transitioned into law, serving as attorney for sophisticated fund complexes and asset management firms.Despite their differences, each role has featured active listening, problem solving, and helping clients navigate uncertainty. Seeing the industry from multiple vantage points makes me a better lawyer, a persuasive advocate, and a more knowledgeable resource. With ICI for the past 7 years, I’ve helped shape, manage, and communicate cutting-edge policy issues—working with our 200+ members to reach consensus and with regulatory agencies, including the SEC, to achieve favorable outcomes. Internally, I am a resource to ICI groups on a broad range of industry issues, policies, and practices. Externally, I enjoy educating members, speaking to the media, and delivering programs on significant regulatory changes and emerging issues.Previously, I was an Associate in Dechert LLP’s Financial Services Group, where I counseled registered and private funds, advisers, and fund boards. My career began with positions at Merrill Lynch and SunTrust Banks.While at SunTrust, I earned my Certified Financial Planner designation (which I have maintained since 2000) and a law degree. I built my industry expertise and wanted to go further—to counsel investment management firms and help them be more nimble and efficient. The ultimate beneficiaries of my work have remained the same—individual investors relying on financial products and services to reach their goals.Whether it’s kitchen-table counseling, SEC negotiations, or public presentations, I am a creative problem-solver, expert resource, and effective advocate for the highly complex investment management industry and the individuals who rely on it.-------------Primary areas of expertise: liquidity risk management · valuation · proxy voting and corporate governance · stress testing · advertising/social media · antitrust matters · disclosure · fixed income-related issues · anti-money laundering (AML)