Ex-Prosecutor Mary Jo White to Be Named S.E.C. Boss.
Mr. Obama is set to announce the nomination at the White House on Thursday afternoon. As part of the event, the White House will also renominate Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a role he has held for the last year under a recess appointment.
In its choice of Ms. White and Mr. Cordray, the White House is sending a signal about the importance of holding Wall Street accountable for wrongdoing. Both picks are former prosecutors.
Regulatory chiefs are often market experts or academics. But Ms. White spent nearly a decade as United States attorney in New York, the first woman named to this post. Among her prominent cases, she oversaw the prosecution of the mafia boss John Gotti as well as the people responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. . .
Consumer advocates generally praised her appointment on Thursday. “Mary Jo White was a tough, smart, no-nonsense, broadly experienced and highly accomplished prosecutor,” said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, the nonprofit advocacy group. “She knew who the bad guys were, went after them and put them in prison when they broke the law.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/mary-jo-white-to-be-named-new-s-e-c-boss/?hp
