Giovanni Prezioso (December 23, 1957-February 28, 2023) became General Counsel of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in April 2002.^[2]

Prezioso served in that post under three different chairmen; Harvey Pitt, William Donaldson, and Christopher Cox. During his tenure the SEC started over 2,000 actions and 100 rules changes. It also implemented the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.^[3] He also reduced the backlog of cases awaiting SEC resolution^[3]

In early 2006,^[4] Prezioso stepped down from the post and rejoined his prior law firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP,^[5] as a partner resident in the firm's Washington, DC office.

He was born in Boston^[6] to Dr. and Mrs. Fausto Maria Prezioso of Towson, Maryland.^[7] Prezioso was a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., history and literature, magna cum laude, 1979) and Harvard Law School (J.D., magna cum laude, 1982). In 1987 he married Elizabeth Holladay Mathews, a television producer, at Christ Episcopal Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.^[7]

Prezioso's bar and other professional activities included service as Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Subcommittee on Municipal and Governmental Obligations, as a member of the New York Stock Exchange Rule 431 Committee, and as a member of the Global Documentation Steering Committee sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of the SEC Historical Society. Prezioso was a member of the Bar of the District of Columbia.

Prezioso was an Advisory Editor of the University of Bologna Law Review, a general student-edited law journal published by the Department of Legal Studies of the University of Bologna.^[8]