The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has created the role of chief data officer to tackle change and develop the Commission’s data management strategy and priorities; enable data analytics to support enforcement, examinations, and policymaking; and ensure that the agency collects only the data it needs to fulfil its mission and can effectively secure the data.
The new role will be filled by Austin Gerig, who is currently Assistant Director of the Office of Data Science in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) at the SEC. He will take up his new position on February 3, 2020.
Gerig has headed DERA’s Office of Data Science since September 2016, managing a team of data scientists, data engineers, financial economists, and research associates. He co-chairs the SEC’s Data Management Working Group and has served as the SEC’s representative on the Financial Stability Board’s Analytical Group on Vulnerabilities and its Financial Innovation Group. He began his SEC career in June 2014 as a financial economist in DERA.
SEC chairman Jay Clayton, says: “Dr Gerig is well suited to further our efforts to ensure there is a coherence between the information we collect and the information we need to carry out our mission. My colleagues at the Commission and I look forward to working with him to better both our use and protection of data.”
Gerig adds: “I look forward to coordinating the efforts underway across the Commission in data management and analytics while also enhancing data security.”
Before joining the SEC, Gerig was a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School.
