Hofstra Law Faculty

Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci

Associate Professor of Law

Degrees

PHD, Bocconi University; JD, Univ Milan; BS, Univ Milan

Bio

Professor Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci specializes in corporate law, with an emphasis on corporate governance, corporate theory, and legal personhood. Professor Gramitto Ricci’s main strand of research investigates how models of share ownership and the corporate governance infrastructure determine the ability of average citizens to participate in the corporate sector. His work in this field has been trailblazing: not just examining structures but exploring different pathways to increase the participation of everyday individuals in corporations’ decisions and profits. He has been analyzing the root causes of shareholding inequality; the relationship between shareholding and societal models; and the market failures that prevent corporate governance from being inclusive. Professor Gramitto Ricci has investigated several mechanisms to make the corporate sector answerable to society as well as the opportunities arising from the fintech-driven resurgence of retail investors as a market game-changer. He has also proposed private ordering solutions and engaged with policymakers to ensure that the stock market remains as accessible as possible for virtually anyone, including underprivileged minorities.

Professor Gramitto Ricci has published in the United States and internationally. His scholarship on retail investors and society-led corporate governance appears or is forthcoming in book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and several law journals such as the Boston University Law Review, the Journal of Corporation Law, and the Washington University Law Review. His standard-bearer article on artificial intelligence and board of directors, titled Artificial Agents in Corporate Boardrooms, is published in the Cornell Law Review. In 2024, Artificial Agents in Corporate Boardrooms was translated and republished in Spanish in the Revista Facultad de Jurisprudencia, in Ecuador. Professor Gramitto Ricci’s work on legal personhood and the nature of corporations appears or is forthcoming in book chapters and law journals, including in the UC Law Journal.

Professor Gramitto Ricci co-authored the book Citizen Capitalism: How a Universal Fund Can Provide Influence and Income to All. His work has been featured on several media outlets, including Fortune and the Italian CNBC.

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

Books

Citizen Capitalism: How a Universal Fund Can Provide Influence and Income to All
(Berrett-Koehler Press, 2019) (with Lynn Stout & Tamara Belinfanti)

Book Chapters & Encyclopedia Entries

Retail Investors & Compliance, ELGAR CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPLIANCE LAW (JAMES FANTO, ED.) (EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING) (forthcoming 2025) (with Lucas Moskovitz) 

Reputation, Stakeholders, & Compliance, ELGAR CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COMPLIANCE LAW (JAMES FANTO, ED.) (EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING) (forthcoming 2025) (with Christina M. Sautter)

Harnessing the Collective Power of Retail Investors, A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR CORPORATE LAW (CHRISTOPHER M. BRUNER & MARC MOORE, EDS.) (EDWARD ELGAR PUBLISHING) (2023) (with Christina M. Sautter)

Articles and Other Law Journal Contributions

The Shareholder Democracy Lie, 77 FLA. L. REV. (forthcoming 2025) (with Daniel Greenwood & Christina M. Sautter)

  • Featured in Mafalda de Sá et al., Coimbra International Workshop on Corporate Governance Discoveries and Innovations: Conference Report, 32 DIREITO DAS SOCIEDADES EM REVISTA 213 (2024)
  • Featured in Fortune, July 30, 2024

Legal Personhood for Artwork, 76 UC L.J. (forthcoming 2025)

Corporate Lawyers as Reputation Gatekeepers, ACCT. ECON. & L. (forthcoming 2025) (with Christina M. Sautter) (invited article)

Total Governance, 50 J. CORP. L. 353 (2025) (with Daniel Greenwood)

The Vitruvian Shareholder, 75 FLA. L. REV. F. 113 (2024)

Wireless Investors & Apathy Obsolescence, 100 WASH. U. L. REV. 1653 (2023) (with Christina M. Sautter) (2023 Institute for Law and Economic Policy Symposium Regulating the Upheavals in the Securities Markets and Corporate Boardrooms)

The Educated Retail Investor: A Response to “Regulating Democratized Investing,” 83 OHIO ST. L.J. ONLINE 205 (with Christina M. Sautter)

The Corporate Forum, 102 B.U. L. REV. 1861 (2022) (with Christina M. Sautter)

The Wireless Investors Movement, U. CHI. BUS. L. REV.: ONLINE EDITION (2022) (with Christina M. Sautter) (inaugural guest academic article)

Sacred Corporate Law, 45 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 413 (2021) (with Mohamed Arafa and Giancarlo Anello) (Berle XII Symposium)

Corporate Governance Gaming: The Collective Power of Retail Investors, 22 NEV. L.J. 51 (2021) (with Christina M. Sautter)

Artificial Agents in Corporate Boardrooms, 105 CORNELL L. REV. 869 (2020)

  • Translated into Spanish and republished in REVISTA FACULTAD DE JURISPRUDENCIA PUCE as Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci, Agentes Artificiales en las JuntasCorporativas, 15 REVISTA FACULTAD DE JURISPRUDENCIA PUCE 26 (Carlos Carrillo & David Cordero-Heredia trans., 2024) (Ecuador) [translation of Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci, Artificial Agents in Corporate Boardrooms, 105 CORNELL L. REV. 869 (2020)]
  • Featured in Bite-Sized Business Law Podcast of Fordham University School of Law, May 21, 2024
  • Featured in FORBES, February 8, 2021
  • Featured on Business Law Prof Blog, September 1, 2020

Archeology, Language, and Nature of Business Corporations, 89 MISS. L.J. 43 (2019)

Corporate Governance as Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal, 41 SEATTLE U. L. REV. 551 (2018) (with Lynn Stout) (Berle IX Symposium)

The Abstract Void in Practice: Has the Statutory Business Judgment Rule Changed the ‘Acoustic Separation’ Between Conduct and Decision Rules for Directors’ Duty of Care?, 31 AUSTL. CORP. L.J. 107 (2016) (with Jake Miyairi)

Commentaries & OpEds

NewHollywoodBlockbusterDepictsaTriumphfor Savvy RetailInvestorsbutIt's JusttheBeginning, FOX BUSINESS (September 20, 2023) (with Christina M. Sautter) (OpEd)

Work-in-Progress

Cases and Materials on Corporate Governance (West Academic Publishing)

Corporate Governance & Public Opinion

The Conundrum of Collective Decision-making from the Greek City-State to Virtual Shareholder Meetings (with Christina M. Sautter)

Complicating the Taxonomy of Publicness in Corporate Law (with Steve Kourabas)

Blog Posts

Millennials and GenZ’ers Have Only One Lifetime to Change the World with Their Investments, The FinReg Blog, Duke Financial Economics Center at Duke University School of Law (September 23, 2022) (with Christina M. Sautter)

How Retail Investing Improves Corporate Governance and Benefits Society, The University of Oxford, Oxford Business Law Blog (OBLB) (September 15, 2022) (with Christina M. Sautter)

How Retail Investing Improves Corporate Governance and Benefits Society, The CLS Blue Sky Blog (the Columbia Law School’s Blog on Corporations and Capital Markets) (August 31, 2022) (with Christina M. Sautter)

Is the Debate on Shareholders and Stakeholders Obsolete?, The FinReg Blog, Global Financial Markets Center at Duke University School of Law (March 28, 2022) (with Anat Alon-Beck & Christina M. Sautter) (expanded into a Forbes article)

WallStreetBets,GameStop,andthe Riseof ‘Wireless’ESGRetailInvestors, Machine Lawyering Blog of the Centre for Financial Regulation and Economic Development at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, (June 14, 2021) (with Christina M. Sautter)

WallStreetBets, GameStop, and the Rise of ESG Retail Investors, The University of Oxford, Oxford Business Law Blog (OBLB) (May 19, 2021) (with Christina M. Sautter)

WallStreetBets, GameStop, and the Rise of ESG Retail Investors, The CLS Blue Sky Blog (the Columbia Law School’s Blog on Corporations and Capital Markets), (May 4, 2021) (with Christina M. Sautter)

Corporate Governance as Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal, The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (November 21, 2017) (with Lynn Stout)

Public Engagement & Comment Letters

Comment Letter on SEC proposed rule “Conflicts of Interest Associated with the Use of Predictive Data Analytics by Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisors,” File No. S7-12-23, filed October 9, 2023 (with Christina M. Sautter)

- Featured in Stakeholder Labs, Fintech Giants Prepare for New Regulatory Paradigm, THE ROUNDTABLE ROUNDUP, October 11, 2023

Recent Courses Taught

CourseTitleLevel
LAW 4701BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONSGraduate
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