Somesha Ferdinand is a trusted legal and regulatory adviser with extensive buy-side and sell-side experience. For over 25 years, she has advised global financial services firms and corporate clients on complex issues including financial regulations, ESG and AI risks, governance, and bridging traditional finance with decentralised finance and digital assets.

She began her career as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, representing the interests of the United States in contentious, high-profile, and first-impression matters. She later served as a Senior Litigation Associate at Dewey Ballantine in New York. An invitation to teach common law at the Comparative Law Institute of the University of Paris Panthéon-Assas brought her to Europe — a move that shaped the global dimension of her practice.

For the past two decades, Ms. Ferdinand has led legal and compliance teams at major financial institutions including AXA, Wells Fargo, and Natixis, working from both London and Paris. At Wells Fargo, she served as a Board Director of Wells Fargo International Banking Corp (WFIBC), the U.S. holding company for the bank’s international entities. She has also acted as external counsel to the UK subsidiaries of BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs, advising on the cross-border implementation of key regulatory and market initiatives aligned with firm-wide strategic priorities.

In 2019, she launched and chaired the Paris arm of the Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF). She continues to champion women's leadership in finance through her role as Vice Chair of the Paris Committee of 100 Women in Finance, where she offers strategic input on educational programming, philanthropy, and peer engagement.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Ms. Ferdinand has long been driven by a passion for sustainable innovation. Witnessing the impact of climate volatility on coastal communities inspired her belief in the power of finance and technology to support societal transition and long-term resilience.

Ms. Ferdinand is a regular speaker at global legal and finance conferences and frequently appears as a legal expert on platforms such as Bloomberg and MSNBC.

She holds a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law and a Bachelor’s degree with honours from Dartmouth College, where she was a Mellon Fellow. She is admitted to the New York Bar and is qualified as a foreign attorney with the Paris Bar.