Donald Trump may have chosen a familiar face to succeed Gary Gensler next year as the top regulator for the asset management industry and the rest of Wall Street.

Paul S. Atkins Patomak Global Partners Founder, Chief Executive

Last week (on Thanksgiving Eve), Bloomberg and Politico both reported that Paul Atkins led the pack of contenders to take over as the 34th chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and had already been interviewed by the President-elect. Then yesterday, Unchained reported that, per three unnamed sources, Trump has picked Atkins for the job. All three aforementioned publications describe Atkins as more friendly to the cryptocurrency world, in contrast with Gensler, and perhaps Atkins would be a different kind of regulator for the mutual fund industry, too.

Less than two weeks ago, Gensler revealed his plans to step down on inauguration day, clearing the way for Trump to pick a new SEC chief. The next day, one of Gensler's fellow SEC Democrats also unveiled his plans to depart soon.

Atkins is no stranger to either Trump or the SEC. Eight years ago, Atkins was rumored to be a contender to take over the SEC in 2017, after reportedly helping with Trump's transition team by advising the President-elect on "policies on financial regulation." Though Trump ultimately chose a different SEC chair in 2017, he also appointed a former Atkins staffer, Hester Peirce, to the commission. (Peirce continues to serve as one of the five.)

Though Atkins has never chaired the SEC, he is a 10-year veteran of the regulatory agency. He spent four years on the SEC's staff in the early 1990s, even advising a then-chair. Atkins returned to the SEC eight years later, in 2002, when U.S. President George W. Bush appointed the lawyer as a commissioner.

Atkins left the SEC when his term ended in 2008 (not in 2007, as was once rumored), and his six years as one of the five may offer fundsters a preview of what his approach to chair the SEC might look like. In that time, Atkins:

called for the creation of a "new products czar" to help shepherd new products through the SEC process;

supported the creation of the short-form mutual fund prospectus;

approved the creation of a faster SEC approval process for ETFs;

defended the supremacy of the federal government in mutual fund regulation and enforcement;

worried about the SEC staff's ability to juggle watching both traditional fundsters and hedge fundsters;

objected to a congressionally-mandated SEC report on a proposed rule requiring mutual fund boards to have independent chairs, and repeatedly dissented against that proposal, under two chairs;

approved new disclosure rules for funds' fees and portfolio holdings;

questioned a proposal for creating a Finra-like SRO for the fund industry; and

opposed proxy vote disclosure regs for fund firms while supporting similar regs for investment advisors.

Atkins also later joined a group of ex-SEC commissioners who pushed back against FSOC's efforts to implement new money fund regs.

After leaving the SEC, Atkins founded Patomak Global Partners in 2009, and he continues to serve as the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm's chief executive. Earlier, he was a partner at PwC and Coopers & Lybrand, and he started his career as a lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He is an alumnus of the Vanderbilt University School of Law and of Wofford College. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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