Katherine K. Martin, Associate Director in the Office of International Affairs, to leave SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Katherine K. Martin, Associate Director in the Office of International Affairs, will leave the agency in February after 15 years of public service.

For the last five years, Ms. Martin oversaw the Commission’s multilateral and bilateral engagement on a wide range of cross-border policy and supervisory cooperation issues. 

“Katherine has been a leading player in enhancing the SEC’s relationships with its international counterparts and building consensus on cross-border matters of critical importance to the agency,” said Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee.  “Katherine’s deep knowledge of the international financial regulatory landscape and of the capital markets has been invaluable. I thank Katherine for her leadership and her years of service to the Commission.”

“Katherine is a true leader and a wonderful colleague,” said Acting Director of the Office of International Affairs Kathleen M. Hutchinson. “She is an expert at finding solutions to what appear to be intractable problems, and her creativity, knowledge of financial regulation, and ability to bring people together has been a tremendous asset to the Commission.”

“It has been a privilege to work with the talented and dedicated staff across the Commission, with colleagues at other U.S. agencies, and with my foreign counterparts around the world,” said Ms. Martin. “Together we successfully made real progress on complex issues important to the U.S. markets and investors, including dealing with the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Among Ms. Martin’s many accomplishments are:

• Coordinating the SEC’s engagement in the work of the international standard-setting bodies, including the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).  She helped shape the workplans of these bodies on a range of issues, including their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and initiatives on non-bank financial intermediation, sustainable finance and fintech.  Ms. Martin also  took a leading role  in bilateral dialogues with foreign counterparts, including the U.S.-EU Financial Regulatory Forum and the U.S.-UK Financial Regulatory Working Group;
• Contributing significantly to standing up the SEC’s cross-border regime for security-based swap entities and co-leading the interagency team working on ground-breaking substituted compliance determinations, including assessments of foreign regulatory regimes and development of new information sharing arrangements;
• Addressing the challenge of privacy laws and legal barriers in other jurisdictions including in the EU, by negotiating new mechanisms to accomplish continued transfers of personal data to the Commission from registrants and authorities in other jurisdictions;
• Working collaboratively with European authorities to secure positive equivalence determinations with respect to the SEC regulatory regime for trading venues and central counterparties, thereby ensuring the ability of European market participants to continue to access U.S. financial markets;
• Addressing the effects of foreign legislation and rules on U.S. market participants, including the impact of the EU’s MiFID II on payments for research; and
• Working closely with the Division of Examinations and other SEC supervisory programs on gaining access to the information they need for the supervision and examination of foreign registrants, including investment advisers, broker-dealers, credit rating agencies, and central counterparties.

Prior to her appointment as Associate Director, Ms. Martin served in various roles at the SEC for more than a decade, including in the Office of Clearance and Settlement in the Division of Trading and Markets, where she worked on financial market infrastructure policy issues and contributed significantly to the development of international standards and guidance in this area, including the CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures.

Prior to joining the Commission, Ms. Martin practiced securities and corporate law at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Hogan Lovells in New York and Washington, D.C. 

Ms. Martin graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University.  She earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Syracuse University College of Law, where she was an executive editor of the Syracuse Law Review.