SEC officials have announced that Karen L. Martinez, regional director of the Salt Lake City, Utah office, will be leaving the agency and retiring this summer.
Martinez joined the SEC’s Salt Lake office in 2002 as trial counsel and began supervising the office’s enforcement program in 2010 when she became assistant director, officials say. In 2013, she was promoted to regional director, and since then she’s overseen the office’s examinations and enforcement cases.
During this time, Martinez also supervised a team within the SEC’s National Exam Program that collects and analyzes data from clearing firms and large broker-dealers throughout the country and uses a risk-based approach to determine which firms are most appropriate for SEC examinations.
“Karen has been a dedicated public servant who has contributed greatly to the commission’s mission,” says SEC Chair Mary Jo White, in a prepared statement. “Investors and our markets have benefited from her deep commitment on enforcement matters as well as her many other efforts.”
Under Martinez’s leadership, the Salt Lake office has brought several enforcement actions, including an insider trading case in Chile, fraud charges against a retirement fund manager and an unregistered investment advisor, and charges against an auditing firm that failed to comply with independence obligations, officials say.
“Karen is a committed and effective member of our team,” says Andrew J. Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a prepared statement. “She has brought her intelligence, common sense, and extensive knowledge of the securities laws to bear on everything that she has done for the agency’s investor protection mission.”
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