Frank M. Placenti

Frank Placenti serves as the leader of U.S. governance practice and is nationally recognized for his work in corporate governance, and mergers and acquisitions. Frank has more than 35 years of experience in corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions, securities law, antitakeover and shareholder relations issues.

He has represented public companies, private equity firms, portfolio companies and brokers/dealers in capital formation, securities and corporate law, regulatory compliance, recapitalizations, and mergers and acquisitions, and with respect to internal and governmental investigations. He has also counseled high net worth families on the formation of professional and independent boards as a strategy for enhancing the performance and securing the futures of their family-owned businesses.

Frank is listed in the 2006 to 2021 editions of Best Lawyers in America, and the 2003 to 2021 editions of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. He is a multiyear member of the Lawdragon 500, an acknowledgment given to the top 500 lawyers in America, and has been listed for more than a decade in Who’s Who in Mergers and Acquisitions. Each year since 2007, Frank has been selected by his peers to appear in Southwest Super Lawyers, a distinction awarded to the top 5% of lawyers in the region.

In 2005, Frank conceived and served as the founding president of the American College of Governance Counsel, a professional association of the leading 150 governance lawyers in North America. He currently serves as the chair of the Corporate Governance Committee of the American Bar Association. He conceived and served as the editor for "The Director’s Handbook, A Field Guide to 101 Situations Commonly Encountered in the Board Room," which was recognized as an Amazon Business Top Seller in the year of its publication.

No stranger to the boardroom, Frank has served on the board and as lead director of a public biotech development company and on the boards of several privately-owned and private equity-backed companies.

Frank is a member of Greater Phoenix Leadership and has served as board chair of some of Arizona’s largest nonprofit organizations, including the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the Herberger Theater Company and the Arizona Science Center. In 2019, he conceived and conducted the Arizona Non-Profit Governance Symposium to provide governance training for nonprofit directors in concert with the Arizona Community Foundation. He also currently serves as a trustee and officer of the American University of Rome.