Silver Lake and Pantheon lose CCOs

David Smolen and Lois Towers have left their positions as chief compliance officers of Silver Lake and Pantheon Ventures, respectively.

Smolen is now general counsel at GI Partners, a San Francisco Bay Area mid-market firm. Towers has become chief compliance officer of consultancy group McHenry Partners, according to her LinkedIn profile.

On its website, tech-focused private equity investor Silver Lake now names senior counsel member Sahil Desai as chief compliance officer. Desai joined the firm’s Menlo Park, California office in 2012 after ten years with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, where he became one of the top attorney’s in the commission’s enforcement team dedicated to policing asset management firms.

At Pantheon, the firm’s US head of legal Kara Zanger will act as interim US compliance head until a replacement for Towers is found, according to a source familiar with the firm.

Both Smolen and Towers have been vocal thought leaders within the private funds compliance community. The two compliance experts have spoken on a number of industry panels. Smolen recently participated in an on-stage discussion about how to prepare for an SEC exam at the 2013 PEI PE/VC Finance and Compliance Forum in San Francisco while Towers spoke about a similar topic at the 2013 PEI Private Fund Compliance Forum in New York. 

The 2014 PEI Private Fund Compliance Forum will be held May 6-7 at the Convene Conference Center in New York, tickets of which can be purchased by clicking here.