Elizabeth King, an associate director in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of trading and markets, is considered the top contender to fill the division’s now vacant deputy director’s slot.
Sources tell Traders Magazine the veteran SEC official is being recommended to division chief Robert Cook by several parties as a replacement for Dan Gallagher, who will leave the agency at the end of January.
The SEC announced on Monday that Gallagher, one of two co-deputy directors, will leave the agency and become a partner in the D.C. office of law firm WilmerHale.
King, who has been with the SEC since 1993, oversees the division’s regulation of the exchange-listed options industry as well as other derivatives. She has been instrumental in guiding the industry toward trading in penny increments, the biggest change to trading practices in recent years.
King is also charged with directing the SEC’s policy regarding regulation of over-the-counter derivatives, a hot button issue since the Panic of ’08.
Gallagher and Jamie Brigagliano are currently the division’s two co-deputy directors. They report to Robert Cook, who joined the SEC at the end of last year.
