Fidelity’s Martha Legg miller and Cowen’s Jeff Solomon Discuss Small Business Capital Formation

Rotarian and Former U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus with Jeff Solomon, Martha Legg Miller and RCB President Chuck Redden

This week the Rotary Club of Birmingham welcomed Martha Legg Miller, Fidelity Investments VP of Public Policy and Regulatory Strategy, and Jeff Solomon, Cowen Inc. Chair and CEO, for a discussion on small business capital formation.

About Martha Legg Miller
Martha Legg Miller is the Vice President of Public Policy and Regulatory Strategy at Fidelity Investments, a diversified financial firm that helps over 40 million people feel more confident in their most important financial goals, manages employee benefit programs for nearly 23,000 businesses, and supports more than 3,600 advisory firms with innovative investment and technology solutions to grow their businesses. Martha leads a talented team that is focused on aligning Fidelity’s solutions for customer and client needs with the legal and regulatory frameworks to achieve them. Her group collaborates across the firm, translating business objectives into actionable strategies to engage with legislators, agencies, and other policymakers.

Prior to joining Fidelity in September 2022, Martha was unanimously appointed as the first Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018, leading a new office created by Congress. Martha had the rare opportunity to scale a startup within the government, working directly with the SEC’s Commissioners and Congress. Congress charged her office with identifying areas of action to improve how capital is raised by “small businesses,” from start-ups to late-stage private companies, through the initial public offering process, and by small cap public companies. Congress’s broad interpretation of “small business” for her office reflected the challenge of developing solutions to support companies outside of the large- and mega-cap space who contribute significantly to job growth, market gains, and innovation. Martha built successful coalitions, improved the regulatory rulebook, and helped make the tools of the investing more accessible, all while empowering traditionally underrepresented market participants. At Fidelity, Martha brings that same creativity and solution orientation to solving problems to address the needs of the firm’s customers.

Before serving at the SEC, Martha was a partner the law firm Balch & Bingham LLP representing companies and investors across a spectrum of corporate transactions. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Cognitive Neuroscience and Communications Studies from Vanderbilt University and a juris doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Martha is now blending her native Alabama accent with her new Boston home base alongside her husband, young children, and dogs.

About Jeff Solomon
Jeffrey M. Solomon is Cowen’s Chair and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Mr. Solomon was President, after serving in the roles of Chief Operating Officer and Head of Investment Banking. Mr. Solomon joined Cowen Investment Management (formerly known as Ramius) when it was founded in 1994 and was the co-portfolio manager responsible for the development, management and oversight of the multi-strategy investment portfolio.

Currently, Mr. Solomon is Vice Chairman and an inaugural member of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee which provides advice and recommendations on Commission rules, regulations and policy matters related to small businesses, including smaller public companies. Mr. Solomon is a member of the American Securities Association. Previously, Mr. Solomon was a member of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research organization dedicated to improving the regulation of U.S. capital markets. He was also the co-chair of the Equity Capital Formation Task Force, a group of individuals from across the country’s startup and small-capitalization company ecosystems advocating for market structure reform to encourage job creation and growth.

Mr. Solomon graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 with a BA in Economics.