President Biden Announces Key Nominees

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve as key leaders in his administration:

• Christy Goldsmith Romero, Nominee to be Chair and Member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
• Kristin N. Johnson, Nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Department of the Treasury
• Caroline A. Crenshaw, Nominee to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission
• Gordon I. Ito, Nominee to be a Member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council

Christy Goldsmith Romero, Nominee to be Chair and Member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Christy Goldsmith Romero has more than 20 years of experience as a career federal attorney and leader in financial regulation, serving under four Presidents. She has served as a Commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) since March 2022, after President Biden’s nomination and the Senate’s unanimous confirmation. She promotes financial stability and market resiliency, integrity, and vibrancy, while overseeing CFTC-registered banks, brokers, exchanges, clearinghouses, funds, and commodity producers. She sponsors the CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee which examines cybersecurity, and emerging technology (AI, digital assets, and blockchain technology) and has issued reports on AI and on Decentralized Finance.

Goldsmith Romero previously served for 12 years at the Department of Treasury, including for a decade as the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), after President Obama’s nomination and the Senate’s unanimous confirmation in 2012. There, she led a nationwide, independent law enforcement and audit watchdog office that conducted oversight over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), where the U.S. government became a shareholder in more than 700 banks, among other programs. She worked to strengthen the financial system. She reported on TARP programs and lessons learned from the financial crisis. Under her leadership, SIGTARP developed a unique ability to uncover hidden fraud in banks. SIGTARP investigations resulted in the recovery of more than $11 billion, civil charges against large financial institutions, and criminal charges against 465 individuals (with courts sentencing to prison 75 bankers and nearly 100 bank borrowers). She also served on a Council of Inspectors General overseeing the Financial Stability Oversight Council.  

From 2019 to 2021, Goldsmith Romero was also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and University of Virginia Law School, teaching courses in securities regulation, cryptocurrency regulation, and federal oversight. She also served for six years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including as counsel to two SEC Chairs, Mary Schapiro and Christopher Cox, during the financial crisis, after serving in the Enforcement Division.  She earned her law degree from Brigham Young University Law School in Utah and an undergraduate degree from Old Dominion University in her native state of Virginia. 

Kristin N. Johnson, Nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, Department of the Treasury

Following President Biden’s nomination and unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Kristin N. Johnson currently serves as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Johnson is a nationally recognized expert on financial markets risk management law and policy with specialization in the regulation of complex financial products including the origination, distribution, and secondary market trading, clearing, and settlement of securities and derivatives.

As an academic, her scholarship explored the risk management and systemic risk implications of cyber threats as well as the concerns created by emerging innovative technologies including distributed digital ledger technologies that enable the creation of digital assets and intermediaries and artificial intelligence technologies. Johnson has testified on artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and related risk management concerns in banking and broader financial markets before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Task Force on Financial Technology and the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence.

Prior to joining the Commission, Johnson held endowed professorships at Emory University Law School and Tulane University Law School and visiting professorships at prestigious law schools around the nation. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, an American Bar Foundation Fellow, and Chaired the Securities Regulation Section and the Executive Committee of the Business Associations and Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services Sections of the Association of American Law Schools. 

Prior to entering the academy, Johnson served as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel in the Treasury Services Division at JP Morgan Chase and as a corporate associate at Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett LLP’s New York and London offices. Before attending law school, Johnson served as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. She clerked for Judge Joseph Greenaway, Jr., Third Circuit Court of Appeals, when he served on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Johnson has a B.S. with honors from Georgetown University Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service in comparative economics and a J.D. from The University of Michigan Law School. Johnson served as a senior editor of the Michigan Law Review. 

Caroline A. Crenshaw, Nominee to be a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Caroline A. Crenshaw was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn into office as Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 17, 2020.

Crenshaw brings to the SEC a range of securities law and policy experience and a commitment to public service and the SEC’s mission. As Commissioner, she has focused relentlessly on strengthening investor protections in our increasingly complex markets and helping to oversee the institutions that manage millions of Americans’ savings. Prior to that, she served as a career SEC staff attorney in the Division of Examinations and the Division of Investment Management, and as Counsel to Commissioners Kara Stein and Robert Jackson. In addition, Crenshaw currently serves as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

Prior to government service, Crenshaw practiced law in the Washington, D.C., office of Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan LLP. At Sutherland she represented public companies, broker-dealers, and investment advisers on complex securities law investigations and enforcement matters.

Gordon I. Ito, Nominee to be a Member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council

Gordon I. Ito currently serves as the Insurance Commissioner for the State of Hawaii. As Commissioner, he focuses on the risks and increased insurance costs that climate change poses to the insurance market. He is a member of several working committees, including the International Insurance Relations Committee.

Previously, Ito served as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Secretary-Treasurer in 2018. He was a recipient of the Robert Dineen award in 2020, an award for Outstanding Service and Contribution to the State Regulation of Insurance. Gordon was the Chair of the NAIC’s Western Zone from 2013-2015, Vice Chair of the International Insurance Relation Committee in 2017 and chaired the International Regulatory Cooperation Working Group and the Information Systems Task Force (EX1). Prior to his appointment, Ito served as the Chief Deputy Insurance Commissioner from 2000 to 2010 and 2019 to 2022 and was the Staff Attorney, and Supervising Attorney of the Insurance Division between 1993 to 2000.

Ito earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Hawaii and a law degree from the University of Hawaii’s William S. Richardson School of Law.

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