Gary Gensler was sworn in Saturday as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
During his swearing in by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., in Baltimore, Gensler said: "I feel incredibly privileged to join the SEC's team of remarkable public servants. As chair, every day I will be animated by our mission: protecting investors; facilitating capital formation; and promoting fair, orderly, and efficient markets. It is that mission that has helped make American capital markets the most robust in the world."
Gensler was nominated to head the SEC by President Joe Biden on February 3 and confirmed by the Senate Wednesday.
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In a statement, Gensler also thanked acting chair Allison Herren Lee "for her leadership the last few months and all of my fellow commissioners for being so generous with their time and advice."
SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, a Republican, said in video tweet Friday that she hopes to work with Gensler on building a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. "That's something that Gary comes to the SEC with a lot of experience in," Peirce said, noting his teaching of blockchain and finance at MIT. Gensler "also has a lot of experience in regulation," Peirce continued.
With Gensler's "combination of knowledge of regulation in the capital markets and knowledge of crypto, we should be able to build a good regulatory framework for crypto," Peirce said.
From 2017 to 2019, Gensler served as chair of the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission. He was previously chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), leading the Obama administration's reform of the $400 trillion swaps market.
Before that, Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner in the mergers and acquisitions department; headed the firm's media group; led fixed income and currency trading in Asia; and was co-head of finance, responsible for the firm's worldwide controllers and treasury efforts. A native of Baltimore, Gensler earned his undergraduate degree in economics in 1978 and his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in 1979.
From: ThinkAdvisor
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Melanie Waddell
Melanie is senior editor and Washington bureau chief of ThinkAdvisor. Her ThinkAdvisor coverage zeros in on how politics, policy, legislation and regulations affect the investment advisory space. Melanie’s coverage has been cited in various lawmakers’ reports, letters and bills, and in the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule in 2024. In 2019, Melanie received an Honorable Mention, Range of Work by a Single Author award from @Folio. Melanie joined Investment Advisor magazine as New York bureau chief in 2000. She has been a columnist since 2002. She started her career in Washington in 1994, covering financial issues at American Banker. Since 1997, Melanie has been covering investment-related issues, holding senior editorial positions at American Banker publications in both Washington and New York. Briefly, she was content chief for Internet Capital Group’s EFinancialWorld in New York and wrote freelance articles for Institutional Investor. Melanie holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson University. She interned at The Baltimore Sun and its suburban edition.
