The Securities and Exchange Commission has named a federal appeals court judge and Marine Corps veteran as its next enforcement director.
Judge Margaret “Meg” Ryan will take the role starting Sept. 2, while Acting Director of Enforcement Sam Waldon will return to his previous job as the division’s chief counsel.
According to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, Ryan is “fulfilling a critical role” and brings decades of experience as a judge and attorney. Ryan said it was an “honor” to join the commission.
“I look forward to joining the commission in its important work to ensure that the division is true to the SEC’s mission in taking action on behalf of investors harmed by those who break the securities laws and providing an effective deterrent against fraudulent and manipulative activities in our financial markets,” she said.
Ryan was an active-duty U.S. Marine Corps communications officer during deployments to the Philippines and in the Gulf War. She also served as an aide-de-camp to Marine Corps Commandant General Charles Krulak from 1997 to 1999.
After law school, she became a USMC judge advocate and a partner at the law firms Wiley Rein & Fielding and Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott. Additionally, Ryan served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Fourth Circuit Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig.
In 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Ryan as a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. She served her entire term through July 2020 and achieved senior status in August 2020.
Currently, Ryan is a lecturer on military law and justice at Harvard University Law School and was previously a visiting professor at Notre Dame and a lecturer at the George Washington University Law School.
Waldon took over from Deputy Director Sanjay Wadhwa, who acted as an interim director in the closing months of the Biden administration after previous Director Gurbir S. Grewal resigned in October of last year.
Before the SEC, Waldon was a partner with the law firm Proskauer Rose and was previously the enforcement division’s assistant chief counsel between 2010 and 2018 and an investigative attorney between 1996 and 1998.
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