The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Mauri L. Osheroff, associate director for regulatory policy in the Division of Corporation Finance, is retiring on April 30 after nearly 40 years at the SEC.

"Mauri Osheroff's career is an inspiration to all those called to public service,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White.  “For nearly four decades, Mauri has worked tirelessly on behalf of American investors and I am deeply grateful for her efforts and expertise."

Ms. Osheroff began her SEC career as a summer employee in 1973 and returned the following year after graduating from law school.  She started as an attorney adviser in the Division of Corporation Finance and was promoted to a special counsel position in 1980.  She was named as the division’s deputy chief counsel in 1984 and became an associate director in 1987.  In that role, she initially oversaw the division’s rulemaking program and later assumed oversight of its offices of Mergers and Acquisitions, International Corporate Finance, and Small Business Policy. 

“Mauri Osheroff has dedicated her professional career to the SEC and leaves a substantial legacy as a member of the division’s senior staff,” said Keith Higgins, director of the Division of Corporation Finance.  “She exemplifies the ideals of professionalism and integrity that are the hallmark of public service, and worked with great enthusiasm and uncompromising principles.  We are extremely grateful for her four decades of service advancing the SEC’s mission of facilitating capital formation and protecting investors.”

Ms. Osheroff said, “I’ve been very fortunate to be able to serve the public while having such a variety of interesting and challenging work over the years.  Most of all, I appreciate having had the opportunity to work with such talented and dedicated people, many of whom have become my friends along the way.  I will always be proud of my service with the Commission.”   

During her tenure Ms. Osheroff received numerous SEC awards, including the Supervisory Excellence Award in 1987, the Philip A. Loomis Award in 1993, and the Distinguished Service Award – the highest honor the agency bestows on an individual – in 2001.  She also received a number of group awards for projects that she managed or contributed to, most recently the Law and Policy Award in 2010 for her role in the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Ms. Osheroff made significant contributions to the SEC’s rulemaking program including:

• Comprehensive changes to the beneficial ownership and short-swing profit recovery rules for corporate insiders (1991 and 1996) and implementation of accelerated, electronic filing of reports on insider transactions, as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002 and 2003)
• Rules requiring public companies to file their reports electronically on the SEC’s EDGAR system, starting with U.S. issuers in 1993 and foreign issuers in 2002
• Improvements to the beneficial ownership reporting scheme for large security holders (1998), comprehensive revisions to the regulatory scheme for takeovers and security holder communications, including Regulation M-A (1999), and updates to the exemptive rules for cross-border takeovers and rights offerings (2008)
• Overhaul of the requirements for foreign private issuer deregistration (2007), a revised exemption from U.S. registration for foreign private issuers (2008), and rule amendments to provide investors with enhanced disclosure by foreign private issuers (2008)
• Regulatory simplification and relief for small businesses (2007), revisions to and electronic filing of Form D (2008), disqualifying “bad actors” from participating in certain private securities offerings, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act (2013), and a proposal to increase small business access to capital under an expanded Regulation A exemption, as required by the JOBS Act (2013).   

In addition to her work at the SEC, Ms. Osheroff taught securities law as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University from 1989 to 1995.  She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Radcliffe College, where she graduated with an A.B., magna cum laude, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.