Investment Management Director Norm Champ to Leave SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Norm Champ, Director of the Division of Investment Management, will leave the agency later this month after five years serving in senior leadership positions.

Mr. Champ played a key role in the SEC’s completion of landmark reforms in 2014 to strengthen the $3 trillion money market fund industry.  He also led numerous structural and policy changes at the agency and oversaw the Division of Investment Management during one of its busiest periods, receiving the Chair’s Award for Labor-Management Relations in both 2011 and 2014.   Mr. Champ also received the Chair’s Award for Law and Policy in those years, and the Chair’s Analytical Methods Award in 2013 for his work on policy issues. 

“The Commission has benefited greatly from Norm’s expertise and sound judgment and we have been very fortunate to have had him work on behalf of U.S. investors and our markets,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White.  “His efforts on important rulemakings and the organizational changes he has put in place will leave a lasting mark on the Commission.”

Mr. Champ said, “It has been a privilege to serve with the talented people of the SEC in both the Division of Investment Management and the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations as we worked together to fulfill the agency’s mission.  Together, we were able to restructure both organizations to increase transparency, increase cooperation across Divisions and offices, provide staff with more opportunities and improve the agency’s use of data while at the same time accomplishing significant policy goals.”

As Director of the Division of Investment Management, Mr. Champ led a restructuring of the Division that provided staff a broader range of development opportunities while increasing staff depth.  Mr. Champ also led efforts to better leverage data collected by the agency by recruiting industry experts and quantitative analysts to the SEC, including specialists in data analytics, risk management and trade analysis. 

Mr. Champ’s key managerial initiatives in the Division of Investment Management included:

• Creation of the Risk and Examination Office in the Division of Investment Management to use data collected from the asset management industry to monitor risks in the industry, firms, and products using the results to inform policy at the SEC.
• Creation of the Senior Level Engagement Program under which senior leadership of the Division meets with senior management and Boards of Directors of strategically important asset management firms to improve the Commission’s awareness of emerging issues in the industry and to engage in direct dialogue about market developments.
• Institution of regular “IM Guidance Updates” to make staff views on investment management issues transparent to stakeholders in the investing public, industry and the regulatory community.

Mr. Champ also played a leading role in numerous policy matters, including:

• Commission adoption of reforms to money market mutual funds to require such funds sold to institutional investors to “float” their net asset value like other mutual funds while preserving the fixed net asset value for retail investors.  The reforms also implemented a “liquidity fee-and-gate” regime for non-government money market mutual funds.
• Commission adoption of rules requiring asset managers to have policies and procedures regarding identity theft “red flags.” 
• Coordination with other federal financial regulators on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s review of risk in the asset management industry.
• Commission approval of the first actively managed exchange traded product that is a hybrid between a mutual fund and an exchange traded fund (ETF) and lifting the Division moratorium on considering exemptive applications for certain ETFs.
• Commission adoption of the Volcker Rule, with a focus on the provisions governing “covered funds” sponsored by banking entities, including working with staff of the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

After leaving the Commission, Mr. Champ will be a Visiting Scholar for Spring Term 2015 at Harvard Law School, where he also is a lecturer in law on a biennial basis teaching a course on investment management law.

Before joining the Division of Investment Management as Director in 2012, Mr. Champ served as Deputy Director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE).  In that role, he was a key leader in the restructuring of the agency’s National Exam Program in the wake of the financial crisis, implementing structural changes, and leading numerous enhancements.  As Deputy Director of OCIE, Mr. Champ supervised examinations of broker-dealers, credit rating agencies, exchanges, clearing agencies, and investment advisers.  Mr. Champ joined the SEC in January 2010 as an Associate Director in the New York Regional Office supervising investment management examinations.  He was named OCIE’s Deputy Director later that year.

Prior to joining the SEC, Mr. Champ served as General Counsel and a member of the Executive Committee of Chilton Investment Company, a multi-national investment adviser to private funds and managed accounts.  From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Champ was a member of the Board of Directors of the Managed Funds Association, a trade association of the hedge fund industry, and was the Chair of its Investor Protection Task Force. Before joining Chilton, Mr. Champ was a lawyer at the firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell.  Mr. Champ served two years as a law clerk for the Honorable Charles S. Haight Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Champ received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1985, a master’s degree from King’s College University of London (where he was a Fulbright Scholar) in 1986, and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1989.