Michael Phillips: Vanguard Legal & Compliance Leader

Michael Phillips

Michael has led legal and business teams in a variety of settings, from large financial services companies to start-ups. As a Managing Director at TIAA/Nuveen, he helped grow the asset management business to over $900 billion AUM, by forming new boutique registered investment advisors (RIAs) and developing alternative investment products distributed in the US and internationally across retail, institutional and high net worth clients. From there he co-founded an innovative investment advisory platform designed to align the interests of agencies, communities and institutional investors in large-scale infrastructure projects, serving as GC/COO and successfully raising institutional capital. Michael’s 25+ years of experience includes legal practice for major U.S. law firms (Faegre Drinker and Richards Layton) and other diversified financial services companies (Northern Trust and The Hartford). He is a CFA Charterholder and former U.S. Army Lieutenant. He earned a BA (English) from Dartmouth, a JD (Law) from William & Mary, an LLM (Taxation) from Villanova, and an MBA (Finance) from Wharton. Michael has a lifelong interest in arts and education, previously serving as a Director of a community arts foundation that founded and operated an arts-based Charter School, as well as recently developing and leading a multi-part training program for corporate employees to foster diversity and inclusion through the lens of art. Current initiatives include serving as a Director of Joy2Learn, a non-profit organization promoting the use of the arts in K-12 education, and advising education technology start-ups.