Former SEC chief Mary Schapiro joins D.C. consulting firm

NEW YORK -- Mary Schapiro, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission in the four years following the financial crisis, has landed at a Washington consulting firm.

Promontory Financial Group announced Schapiro’s new role as managing director and chairman of its governance and markets practice division Tuesday. At the firm, she’ll work with banking and financial services clients on governance and risk management.

“This is important not only to companies, but also to our markets and to global prosperity,” Schapiro said in a statement.

Schapiro, who stepped down from the SEC in December, was the first woman to lead the agency.

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She took the helm as the regulator struggled to maintain investor confidence amid the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and after the agency failed to stop Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme.

Promontory’s founder and chief executive Eugene Ludwig called Schapiro an “outstanding advocate for investors” who was a “strong and decisive regulator during one of the most volatile periods in our financial history.”

Prior to joining the SEC, Schapiro headed two other major regulators: the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self-governing body, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

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