Chris Hayes is a Managing Partner at Capitol Asset Strategies, which provides strategic advice, guidance, and risk management to financial services and web3 firms, as well as other organizations interested in these policy areas.

Before joining Capitol Asset Strategies, Hayes held several policy roles in the web3/blockchain industry, as well as in the traditional financial services space. Most recently, he led global government relations for the Celo Layer-1 blockchain, as well as US government relations for Sorare SAS, an NFT company backed by Softbank.

Prior to entering the blockchain industry, Chris built and led the global advocacy program for over 600 institutional investors in private funds at the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) for five years. He also led its legal best practices initiatives, as well as ILPA’s engagement with in-house legal teams at LPs.

Some of Hayes’ key accomplishments include leading multiple successful advocacy campaigns in Congress and at the SEC in the private funds space for Limited Partners, including on the Investment Adviser Alignment Act, Stop Wall Street Looting Act, the SEC Private Fund Adviser (PFA) Rule, and the 2017 tax reform legislation; spearheadeing the passage of legislation that created an office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation, and a permanent Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee at the SEC, as well as legislation that was the first rollback to Dodd-Frank, raising the 150MM SEC registration for certain private fund advisers; leading the project that created the first free, publicly available model limited partnership agreement (LPA) for private funds – the ILPA Model LPA; influencing the groundbreaking Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation in the EU, with a focus on the provisions regarding stablecoins, and native layer-1 tokens; and building and leading a successful advocacy platform for a Layer-1 blockchain focusing on the use of tokenized carbon credits on blockchain technology.

Before ILPA, Chris co-led the government affairs efforts as General Counsel at the Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), the primary trade association for Business Development Companies (BDCs), US middle-market private equity advisers, and Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs).

Chris is active as an advisor, investor, and fundraiser in the private funds’ space, given his extensive network with the institutional allocator community. He serves as an advisor to Aumni, Inc., a private fund legal analytics platform recently acquired by JP Morgan, and on the advisory board of Steward Asset Management, a strategic investor to emerging and diverse private equity and opportunistic managers.

Chris holds a Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego School of Law, and a B.A. in political science and legal studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is admitted to practice law in California (inactive) and the District of Columbia.