Long after the fanfare of the Obama inauguration, and even after the party whistles of the Geithner confirmation hearing, new Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro was yesterday sworn into the hot seat. The career regulator will now face what is sure to be her biggest challenge: restoring legitimacy to an organization that in recent months has faded to obsolescence across Wall Street.
Though outgoing SEC head Chris Cox had been slated to serve in his office until 2010, the events of the credit crisis—and Cox’s perceived failure to adequately address it—reportedly sent him packing early in the new Democratic administration took over.
Schapiro, who previously held top posts at the Financial Regulatory Authority and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, begins her new job with the mission of bringing the SEC back to relevance in a financial landscape recently dominated by the Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank.