Gary Gensler was born on October 18,1957 and is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
37 Facts About Gary Gensler
2.
Gary Gensler served as the 11th chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, under President Barack Obama, from May 26,2009, to January 3,2014.
3.
Gary Gensler was the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, and the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets.
4.
Gary Gensler served as the CFO for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.
5.
President Joe Biden nominated Gary Gensler to serve as 33rd chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
6.
Gary Gensler was born into a Jewish family, in Baltimore, Maryland, one of five children of Jane and Sam Gary Gensler.
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Gary Gensler graduated from Pikesville High School in 1975, where he was later given a Distinguished Alumnus award.
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In 1979, Gary Gensler joined Goldman Sachs, where he spent 18 years.
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At 30, Gary Gensler became one of the youngest persons to have made partner at the firm at the time.
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Gary Gensler spent the 1980s working as a top mergers and acquisitions banker, having assumed responsibility for Goldman's efforts in advising media companies.
11.
Gary Gensler subsequently made the transition to trading and finance in Tokyo, where he directed the firm's fixed income and currency trading.
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Gary Gensler left Goldman after 18 years when he was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the US Senate to be the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
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Gary Gensler served on the board of for-profit university Strayer Education, Inc from 2001 to 2009.
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Gary Gensler has served in various governmental roles since the 1990s.
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Gary Gensler served in the United States Department of the Treasury as Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets from 1997 to 1999, then as Undersecretary for Domestic Finance from 1999 to 2001.
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In 1999 and 2000, under then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Gary Gensler fought for passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted over-the-counter derivatives from regulation.
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In 2001, Gary Gensler joined the staff of US Senator Paul Sarbanes, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, as a senior advisor and helped write the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which tightened accounting standards in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals.
18.
Gary Gensler's nomination was officially sent to the US Senate on January 20,2009.
19.
Gary Gensler was sworn in on May 26,2009, pledging to work to "urgently close the gaps in our laws to bring much-needed transparency and regulation to the over-the-counter derivatives market to lower risks, strengthen market integrity and protect investors".
20.
Gary Gensler was described as "one of the leading reformers after the financial crisis".
21.
Gary Gensler oversaw the agency as it wrote 68 new rules, orders and guidances and as its reach extended from a $35 trillion futures market to a $400 trillion swaps market.
22.
Gary Gensler led a revitalization of the enforcement division of the agency, most notably in its prosecution of an enforcement case regarding manipulation of Libor, the London interbank offered rate.
23.
Early in his tenure, Gary Gensler listened to tape recordings of two Barclays employees as they discussed plans to report false interest rates in an effort to manipulate Libor.
24.
Gary Gensler has called Libor "unsustainable" and argued that it should be replaced as a benchmark rate.
25.
In 2017, Gary Gensler was selected by the Maryland Senate President and House Speaker to serve as Chairman of the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission, which assessed the impact of potential changes to federal financial industry laws, regulations, budgets, and policies on the state.
26.
In November 2020, Gary Gensler was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the Federal Reserve, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
27.
On September 14,2021, Gary Gensler testified before the US Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee that the SEC was in need of large staffing increases to address regulatory concerns related to cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, and Gary Gensler likened the cryptocurrency market to a "Wild West".
28.
Gary Gensler is opposed to approving pure play bitcoin ETFs due to bitcoin remaining subject to fraud and market manipulation.
29.
On May 18, Gary Gensler testified before the US House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government requesting an even greater increase to its appropriation in the 2023 US federal budget than the 8 percent increase proposed by President Biden.
30.
On November 18,2021, US Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Gary Gensler requesting that the SEC investigate possible securities law violations in the conduct of a merger between the Digital World Acquisition Corp.
31.
Gary Gensler served as treasurer of the Maryland Democratic Party for two years, and held several senior roles on the Maryland campaigns of US Senator Barbara Mikulski, former Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and Governor Martin O'Malley.
32.
In May 2015, Gary Gensler was named chief financial officer of Clinton's campaign for president.
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Gary Gensler is Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, co-director of MIT's Fintech@CSAIL and senior adviser to the MIT Media Lab Digital Currency Initiative.
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Gary Gensler focuses on the intersection of finance and technology, conducts research and teaches on blockchain technology, digital currencies, financial technology and public policy.
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Gary Gensler is a member of the New York Fed Fintech Advisory Group, a group of experts in financial technology that regularly presents views and perspectives on the topic to the president of the New York Fed.
36.
Gary Gensler was married to filmmaker and photo collagist Francesca Danieli from 1986 until her death from breast cancer in 2006.
37.
Gary Gensler is a runner and has finished nine marathons and one 50-mile ultramarathon.