SEC Commissioner Walter to Replace Chairman Mary Schapiro
Elisse Walter,
chairman,
SEC
After overseeing a major chapter in the regulatory agency’s history, SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro will step down from her post on Dec. 14 and will be replaced by Elisse B. Walter, an SEC commissioner.
President Obama approved Walter’s promotion, sidestepping Congressional approval. As it moves into its second term, the Obama administration is likely to name a new head of the SEC, according to several media reports.
Schapiro, who became chairman amid the Great Recession of January 2009, says that during her tenure she has strengthened the agency via a more rigorous enforcement and examination program, and setting forth new rules for Wall Street. SEC officials say Schapiro has served longer than 24 of the previous 28 chairmen.
“It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to work with so many dedicated SEC staff who strive every day to protect investors and ensure our markets operate with integrity,” Schapiro said in a prepared statement. “Over the past four years we have brought a record number of enforcement actions, engaged in one of the busiest rulemaking periods, and gained greater authority from Congress to better fulfill our mission.”
The agency has brought more enforcement actions than ever before, say SEC officials, who cite 735 enforcement actions in fiscal year 2011 and 734 actions in FY 2012.
Officials also say that during her tenure the agency inaugurated a whistle-blower program via the Dodd-Frank Act, improved regulation of asset-backed securities, launched an entirely new regulatory regime for previously-unregulated derivatives, and required advisers to hedge funds and other private funds to register and be subject to SEC rules.
Mary Schapiro,
former chairman,
SEC
Before her term as chairman, Schapiro served as an SEC commissioner from 1988 to 1994. She was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, reappointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, and named acting chairman by President Bill Clinton in 1993. She left the SEC when Clinton appointed her as chairman of the CFTC, where she served until 1996. Shapiro is the only person to have ever served as chairman of both the SEC and CFTC.
In another SEC staff change, the agency promoted Lorraine B. Echavarria to lead the Los Angeles Regional Office’s enforcement program as an Associate Regional Director, officials say. Echavarria, who joined the SEC in 2000, has served as an assistant regional director for more than five years and has served in the enforcement division’s national Municipal Securities and Public Pension Specialized Unit for more than two years. Echavarria has worked on major cases, including the SEC’s first-ever Sarbanes-Oxley Act “clawback” case against an individual required to return bonuses and stock profits while not personally charged for the company’s misconduct.
Lombard Risk Taps David Wilford to Lead Compliance Products Push
Lombard Risk Management has appointed David Wilford as director of compliance products in time for the launch of its compliance and audit application ComplianceASSESSOR, officials say.
Wilford has more than 35 years’ experience in advising banks on risk management and regulatory issues. For the past 10 years, Wilford has served in an advisory for firms that need to interpret and implement Basel II and III as specified by the EU and subsequently the Financial Services Authority (FSA) Prudential Sourcebooks, officials say. He has also been advising banks on the adequacy of their risk governance frameworks to address these and other regulatory requirements and implementation issues. He will lead the ComplianceASSESSOR team.
The ComplianceASSESSOR software has been designed to show senior management how a firm complies and continues to comply with regulations, officials say.
Object Trading Hires from Progress Software
Object Trading, a global direct market access (DMA) provider, has named Dan Hubscher director of marketing, officials say. Hubscher will be the first to hold the position and will oversee the efforts to promote the vendor’s FrontRunner suite of products.
Hubscher, who has 15 years of capital markets technology sector experience, was previously industry marketing manager, capital markets, for Progress Software. He was responsible for overseeing marketing strategies for solutions in algorithmic trading, e-commerce, and market surveillance and monitoring since 2009. He has worked for BT Radianz, overseeing sales, marketing and development efforts.
RTS Broadens Its Embrace of Asia/Pacific
RTS Realtime Systems Group, a trading network and data center services provider, recently unveiled plans to launch data centers in Shanghai, in January, and in Tokyo, by the end of 2012, and will relocate its CEO to Singapore.
The new Shanghai and Tokyo data centers are in addition to the recently launched Hong Kong facility, significantly expanding the vendor’s global trading network in Asia/Pacific, officials say. RTS began offering access to China’s four futures exchanges earlier this year and established a local Chinese entity through which the firm will conduct business.
Steffen Gemuenden, the CEO of RTS, will move from Chicago to Singapore in January, officials say. In addition, Andy Woodhouse, RTS managing director, APAC, will relocate from Singapore to the vendor’s Hong Kong office to focus on clients in North Asia and China. Singapore will serve as the APAC regional headquarters for RTS.
RTS will maintain global and European headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, and its US headquarters in Chicago. Over the past two years, the provider has quadrupled its staff in Asia/Pacific from 15 in January 2011 to 60 currently, officials say.
Through its data centers, RTS offers proximity hosting services, along with direct market access to more than 135 exchanges across regions and assets classes, officials say. The firm also offers low latency access to more than 80 marketplaces, including in Chicago, New York, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Tokyo.
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