The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority veteran enforcer and regulatory operations chief Susan F. Axelrod will leave the agency in April, Finra announced Thursday. Axelrod, the executive vice president of regulatory operations, oversees the Member Regulation program, the Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence, Enforcement, and Shared Services. After a nearly three-decade career working in some capacity as an enforcer over broker misconduct, she now plans to go to work in the private sector.
Axelrod was originally part of the New York Stock Exchange’s regulatory arm, which merged with the National Association of Securities Dealers to forge the new self-regulatory organization Finra in 2007. Finra says Axelrod played a key role in the merging of the organizations.
Under her leadership, Finra has created a securities help line for seniors and a program to identify problem brokers. She also led Finra efforts on cybersecurity and the establishment of an anti-money-laundering unit and led the creation of a women’s leadership forum.
Axelrod has often been a visible defender of Finra at times when critics have charged it has not done enough to expose problem brokers to the public. Axelrod has rigorously defended the agency’s record, as Financial Advisor has reported, saying critics wanted lists of brokers where there was not enough proof.
She took her current job in 2013. She’s stepping down from that position in January 2018 and will become a senior advisor to Finra president Robert Cook until April, helping assist new leadership take over regulatory operations.
Cook said in the announcement, “Susan has been integral to Finra’s examination and enforcement program over her long and extraordinary career as a regulator, and I am grateful for her many contributions to Finra and her tireless efforts on behalf of investors. From protecting seniors to addressing the rise of cybersecurity risk, Susan has been in the vanguard meeting the many challenges that have confronted investors and the markets in recent years.”
As EVP, Axelrod led 1,400 people in 14 offices. The regulatory operations office, says Finra, “conducts examinations and investigations of thousands of Finra member firms and their branches every year, [and has] reviewed thousands of potential fraud and insider trading cases, prosecuted numerous firms and salespersons engaged in serious misconduct and won millions of dollars in restitution for harmed investors.”
She joined the New York Stock Exchange in 1989 as a staff attorney in the division of enforcement, says Finra. Taking over the enforcement director job there in 1997. She took on insider trading and broker misconduct cases, as well as sales practice violations.
She got her J.D. from the Hofstra University School of Law in 1989.