Biography

Annette L. Nazareth was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Securities and Exchange Commission and sworn in on August 4, 2005.

Prior to being appointed a Commissioner, Ms. Nazareth served as the Commission's Director of the Division of Market Regulation, a position she held from March 1999 until August 2005. As Director, Ms. Nazareth had primary responsibility for the supervision and regulation of the U.S. securities markets, principally through the regulation of brokers and dealers, exchanges, clearing agencies, transfer agents and securities information processors. Significant initiatives adopted by the Commission during her tenure include: execution quality disclosure rules, implementation of equities decimal pricing, short sale reforms, implementation of a voluntary regime for consolidated supervision of broker-dealer holding companies and modernization of the national market system rules. She joined the Commission staff in 1998 as Senior Counsel to Chairman Arthur Levitt and served briefly as the Interim Director of the Division of Investment Management.

Ms. Nazareth served as the Commission's representative on the Financial Stability Forum (FSF). The FSF promotes international financial stability through information exchange and international cooperation in financial supervision and surveillance. The FSF brings together on a regular basis national authorities responsible for financial stability in significant international financial centers.

Prior to joining the Commission staff, Ms. Nazareth held several positions in the financial services industry. As a Managing Director of Smith Barney from 1997 to 1998, she was deputy head of the capital markets legal group. As a Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel of Lehman Brothers, Ms. Nazareth was the chief legal advisor to the fixed income division from 1994 to 1997. From 1986 to 1994, she served as Managing Director and General Counsel of Mabon Securities Corp. and its predecessor business, Mabon, Nugent & Co. She began her career as an associate with the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell in 1981, where she worked with commercial banks, investment banks and corporations on mergers and acquisitions, syndicated loans and public and private securities offerings.

Ms. Nazareth was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She received her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and her A.B., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Brown University.

Ms. Nazareth is married to Roger W. Ferguson, Jr. and they have two children.