The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today announced that its 33rd Chair, Gary Gensler, will step down from the Commission effective at 12:00 pm on January 20, 2025.
Chair Gensler began his tenure on April 17, 2021, in the immediate aftermath of the GameStop market events.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission is a remarkable agency,” said Chair Gensler. “The staff and the Commission are deeply mission-driven, focused on protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and ensuring that the markets work for investors and issuers alike. The staff comprises true public servants. It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve with them on behalf of everyday Americans and ensure that our capital markets remain the best in the world”.
Chair Gensler was formerly Chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He also was senior advisor to U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes in writing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) and was undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance and assistant secretary of the Treasury from 1997-2001.
Before joining the SEC, Chair Gensler was professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-director of MIT’s Fintech@CSAIL, and senior advisor to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative. From 2017-2019, he served as chair of the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission.
Earlier in his career, Chair Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner in the Mergers & Acquisition department, headed the firm’s Media Group, led fixed income & currency trading in Asia, and was co-head of Finance, responsible for the firm’s worldwide Controllers and Treasury efforts.
A native of Baltimore, Md., Chair Gensler earned his undergraduate degree in economics in 1978 and his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in 1979.
