Biography
Cynthia Bookhart Adams is Deputy General Counsel, TD Bank N.A. Previously, she was Managing Director and Head of Litigation, Regulatory and Employment Legal at Jefferies LLC, a global investment banking firm. She leads the team responsible for a wide array of litigation, enforcement, and employment matters, including internal investigations, regulatory and compliance advice, and firm-wide policy initiatives.
Prior to Jefferies, Cynthia held senior in-house legal roles at Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Global Wealth Management. She joined Citigroup from WilmerHale, where she represented financial institutions in regulatory investigations and other matters. Prior to WilmerHale, she served as an enforcement attorney in the New York office of FINRA (then NASD Regulation). Cynthia began her legal career at Sullivan & Cromwell, following a federal clerkship for the Hon. Emmet G. Sullivan in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She earned her law degree with honors from Howard University School of Law, and her undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary.
Cynthia serves on the Executive Committee of the Compliance and Legal Society for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the leading industry group for the financial services industry. She is also a member of the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association. She frequently speaks on panels regarding ethics for legal and compliance professionals, best practices for regulatory and internal investigations, and success strategies for diverse counsel.
Cynthia currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Northside Center for Child Development, a non-profit providing expert behavioral, mental health, education and enrichment programs to economically disadvantaged children and families in Harlem and Brooklyn. At Jefferies, she has served on the Steering Committee of jWIN, the firm’s women’s leadership initiative, and on the Steering Committee for J-NOBLE, the Jefferies Network of Black and Latino Employees.