Andrew J. “Buddy” Donohue was named as the chief of staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Donohue will replace Lona Nallengara who will leave the agency in June.
Andrew Donohue
As chief of staff, Mr. Donohue will be a senior adviser to SEC Chair Mary Jo White on all policy, management, and regulatory issues.
“I am thrilled that Buddy will be returning to the SEC to provide his extensive knowledge and expertise to the agency,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “Buddy is a seasoned professional whose previous SEC and private sector experience will be invaluable in advancing all aspects of the agency’s mission. His deep knowledge of asset management will be especially useful as the Commission advances its rulemaking agenda for addressing potential risks in asset management and considers a uniform fiduciary standard.”
Donohue returns to the SEC after serving as Director of the agency’s Division of Investment Management from May 2006 to November 2010.
As director, he was instrumental in developing regulations governing the asset management industry and was responsible for policy and oversight affecting registered investment advisers as well as investment companies and the investment company industry.
Most recently, Donohue has been managing director, associate general counsel, and investment company general counsel at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York, where he was primarily responsible for legal matters related to its registered investment companies.
Prior to that, he was a partner in the Investment Management Practice Group at Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP in New York from March 2011 to October 2012.
From May 2003 to May 2006, Donohue served as global general counsel at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in New Jersey. In that role, he oversaw the firm’s legal, regulatory and compliance matters for the investment advisory business.
From June 1991 to November 2001, Donohue served as executive vice president, general counsel, director, and as a member of the executive committee of the investment fund subsidiary of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, OppenheimerFunds Inc.
Prior to that, Donohue served in senior roles at other firms since 1975.
Donohue earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1975 and his B.A., cum laude, with honors in Economics from Hofstra University in 1972.
Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets in Washington, D.C. was not happy with the appointment.
“The American people are sick and tired of seeing Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail banks welcomed with open arms in Washington, DC even though they crashed the financial system, received trillions in taxpayer bailouts, caused widespread economic wreckage and brazenly and repeatedly break the law,” Kelleher said. “The SEC’s hiring of a Goldman Sachs executive to be the SEC Chair’s very powerful, very influential Chief of Staff is an affront to the tens of millions of American families who suffered through the 2008 financial crash and are still struggling to recover today. Adding insult to injury, this person also previously worked at the SEC when the agency was missing in action in the years leading up to the worst financial crash since the Great Crash of 1929.”
“The revolving door and the pernicious outsized influence Wall Street has over elected officials, policy makers, and regulators are seriously eroding the trust and confidence of the American people in its own government and democracy itself,” Kelleher said. “This hire will only feed that cynicism. After all, this simply is not the only well-qualified person from among 320 million Americans for such an important high government position. Rather than giving Wall Street yet more influence and access, the SEC has to get back into the business of investor protection, fighting for real financial reform and putting the cops back on the Wall Street beat to end the crime spree Americans read about every day.”