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By Colleen Lutolf
Posted on 2/19/09
Since Mary Schapiro became chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), there have been more than a few resignations and appointments.
Here is a who’s who of who’s in and who is out at the beleaguered commission.
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Linda Chatman Thomsen was the SEC’s director of the enforcement division for 14 years, and brought the second and third-highest number of enforcement actions in the agency’s history, including leading the Enron Corp. investigation, according to the SEC.
That past work didn’t save Thomsen from significant criticism during a Feb. 4 House subcommittee hearing investigating the SEC’s failure to detect the Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme, despite red flags raised to the agency staff by outsiders for more than a decade, according to the Associated Press.
Thomsen gave Schapiro her resignation less than a week later.
A leading candidate to replace Thomsen is Robert Khumazi, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and a lawyer at Deutsche Bank since 2002, according to the Associated Press.
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Robert Colby, deputy director of the Trading and Markets Division is leaving the SEC after 27 years to take a position at Davis Polk & Wardell in Washington D.C.
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Andrew Vollmer was named acting general counsel at the SEC on Jan. 21 after his successor Brian Cartwright left the agency in January to return to the private sector. Vollmer didn’t last long in this position. He resigned from the SEC earlier this month after almost three years as the SEC’s deputy general counsel.
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David M. Becker is the SEC’s newly appointed general counsel and senior policy director, the SEC announced Feb. 6.
Becker previously served as SEC general counsel between January 200 and May 2002 after joining the SEC staff as deputy general counsel in 1998, according to the SEC. Becker is leaving Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where he was a partner in the firm’s Washington D.C. office. -
Kayla J. Gillan was appointed to the SEC’s senior advisor post by Schapiro on Feb. 17. Gillan was a founding board member of the Public Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), where she served from January 2003 through January 2008. Previously, she served as general counsel for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.Since leaving the PCAOB, Gillan has worked as the chief administrative officer at RiskMetrics Group, Inc. a firm that provides risk management and corporate governance products and services to financial market participants, according to the SEC.
At the SEC, Gillan will lead multiple projects, including the creation of an Investor Advisory Council, reconsidering access to the proxy and evaluating shareholder advisory votes on executive compensation, according to the SEC.
Former SEC Chief Accountant Conrad Hewitt was one of the first SEC alumni to announce his resignation, on Nov. 25 after two and a half years at the agency.
Hewitt championed convergence of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and a move toward implementing the use of interactive data in financial reporting using XBRL. The use of XBRL becomes mandatory for larger firms in June.
He was also the top accountant when the commission refused to sign off on FASB's budget until its parent organization, the Financial Accounting Foundation, agreed to SEC demands for more say in the appointment of both FASB members and FAF trustees. Withholding the budget approval in exchange for more authority over appointees was seen as an encroachment by the SEC on FASB's status as an independent standard setter, according to CFO.com.
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James L. Kroeker was named acting chief accountant in early January, after joining the commission as deputy chief accountant in February 2007.
Bloomberg News reported on Feb. 11 that Schapiro may choose former PCAOB member Charles Niemeier to assume the chief accountant role at the SEC, which may put a crimp in Hewitt’s work on convergence. Niemeier was a vocal opponent of IFRS at FAE’s 2008 Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC and PCAOB Conference last year. He’s also in favor of mark-to-market accounting.
