Financial Regulation and Compliance: How to Manage Competing and Overlapping Regulatory Oversight, + Website

Preface

During the week of March 10, 2008, I was in the first few months of my new position as Inspector General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). I had come over to the SEC after serving as Inspector General of the Peace Corps. At the Peace Corps, I dealt with many very significant issues, some involving life and death, as I tried to put into place procedures for ensuring Peace Corps Volunteer safety and security. Much of my time was spent working with foreign governments to assist in the prosecution of individuals who committed heinous crimes against Peace Corps Volunteers, such as assault, rape, and even murder. I found my job very rewarding and many of the protections we put into place for Volunteers remain in existence today. The Peace Corps position was, however, generally low profile, and while I testified before Congress on one or two occasions during my tenure as Inspector General of the Peace Corps, for the most part, we were able to operate out of the public eye. I recall when I interviewed for the SEC position that former Chairman Christopher Cox told me, at the end of my interview, words to the effect of “one thing you will realize if you work here, this is not going to be like working at the Peace Corps.” Chairman Cox certainly turned out to be right about that statement.

I was the second ever Inspector General in the SEC's history. The previous Inspector General had been in his position for approximately 18 years, and had recently retired among ...