ARTLETS ALUMNUS and lawyer Francis Edralin Lim has been appointed the next chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin announced in a press briefing.
Lim is set to replace incumbent SEC chairman Emilio Aquino, whose seven-year term will expire on June 6.
“Now, as far as new appointments are concerned, I have to announce that today, the President has appointed Attorney Francis Edralin Lim as the incoming chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Bersamin said in a press briefing on Tuesday, June 3.
Bersamin said Lim’s leadership would “strengthen investor confidence” and push transparency, growth and development in the Philippine financial sector.
“He has contributed significantly to investor protection and market transparency through both his professional work and his academic involvement. He brings to this office decades of experience in corporate law, governance and capital market’s regulation,” he added.
Lim finished his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters. He later graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law in 1981 and obtained a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to his appointment, he served as president of the Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. (PSE) from 2004 to 2010.
He is also a former PSE director and chief executive officer of its subsidiary, the Securities Clearing Corporation of the Philippines.
In 2020, Lim was named president of the Management Association of the Philippines, an exclusive organization for executives that seeks to “promote management excellence for nation-building.”
He is currently a professor of Ateneo and the San Beda Graduate School of Law and a member of the Philippine Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association.
The incoming SEC chairman is also a senior partner at Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices, where he has worked for over a decade. He was also a member of the Supreme Court Sub-Committee on Commercial Courts and E-commerce.
Lim was conferred the Lawyer of the Year award for the Philippines by Benchmark Litigation Asia-Pacific in 2019. He was also recognized as a Punong Gabay awardee by the Philippine Council of Deans and Educators in 2010.
SEC is a government agency under the Department of Finance in charge of the registration and supervision of corporations in the Philippines. It is mandated to regulate the activities and status of the country’s financial market. F
