The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Charles A. Fishkin, Director of the SEC Office of Risk Assessment, will leave the Commission early in the new year to take a risk management position at the New York City headquarters of AllianceBernstein L.P., a global asset management firm. Fishkin leaves the Commission having introduced important cultural, organisational, and methodological changes to help the Commission better anticipate and address emerging issues and potential problems in the securities markets.
Under his leadership, the Commission created the Office of Risk Assessment and introduced an innovative agency-wide risk management program. Fishkin will remain at the agency during a transition period to assist with ongoing matters and to work with the Chairman on identifying a successor.
“Charles has had an enormous impact preparing the agency to meet tomorrow’s challenges,” says Christopher Cox, the chairman of the SEC. “The risk program he and his office created will have a lasting effect on the SEC’s ability to protect investors, maintain orderly markets, and promote capital formation. Starting a new program within a major federal agency is hugely challenging, but Charles successfully met that challenge through his abilities as an innovator and leader. With Charles’s work as our foundation, the Office of Risk Assessment and our risk management program will continue to play a critical role in the success of the Commission’s mission.”
“I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve as a member of the agency’s senior staff and to work closely with so many outstanding individuals in our office and across the agency,” says Fishkin. “Their talents have made our capital markets the most admired in the world and America’s investors the safest. It has been a unique honor to be asked by Chairman Donaldson to start this new program and continue it under the leadership of Chairman Cox and all of the Commissioners who have served during my time at the agency.”
Fishkin assumed his current position in July of 2004, when he was appointed by then SEC Chairman William H. Donaldson to coordinate risk management activities across the agency. The Office of Risk Assessment was established to develop a process where senior managers at the Commission have the information to make better, more informed decisions and to adjust operations, resources and methods of oversight to address new challenges and prevent problems. The Office has been active in all aspects of the agency’s operations and programs, including investment adviser issues, hedge fund regulation, international regulatory dialogue, disclosure, ethics, emergency preparedness, human capital and diversity.
Before joining the agency, Fishkin spent twenty years in the private sector in financial services. He also served on the board of directors of the International Association of Financial Engineers and help found its Operational Risk Committee. Earlier this year he published a book on risk management entitled The Shape of Risk: A New Look at Risk Management. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago.