Former SEC official Robert W. Cook will be the new president and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), effective in the second half of 2016. He will succeed Richard G. Ketchum, chairman and CEO since 2009. The board of FINRA, which is the self-regulatory body of the securities industry, said it will name a new chairman this year.
Cook has been a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, where he focused on the regulation of securities markets and market intermediaries, including broker-dealers, exchanges, alternative trading systems and clearing agencies. He joined the firm in 1992.
From 2010 to 2013, Cook served as the director of the Trading and Markets Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Under his direction, the Division’s 250 professionals were responsible for regulatory policy and oversight with respect to broker-dealers, securities exchanges and markets, clearing agencies and FINRA.
Cook directed the staff’s review of equity market structure and its analysis of the Flash Crash of May 6, 2010.
Cook graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in Social Studies in 1988 from Harvard College, received his Master of Science with distinction in Industrial Relations and Personnel Management from the London School of Economics in 1989, and received his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1992.
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