Alan M. Cohen ‘79, one of this year’s Rutgers Law School Alumni Association honorees, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Rutgers Law School Center for Corporate Law and Governance, has left Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to join the Security and Exchange Commission this month as a senior policy advisor to Chairman Jay Clayton, according to a news release from the SEC.
He is the second Rutgers Law School graduate to be tapped for an important post at the SEC. Kristina Littman ‘05, who joined the government agency in 2010, was recently promoted to be the lead advisor to Chairman Clayton.
Cohen, who spent 13 years as head of compliance for Goldman Sachs, will advise the SEC on the U.K.’s separation from the European Union and on new EU regulations that require brokers to charge for analysis rather than offering it as a free perk along with other services, according to the release. He also will advise the agency on issues related to the clearing and settlement of derivatives.
He was an advisor to the executive office at Goldman Sachs after joining the firm in 2004 as the Global Head of Compliance and a member of the management committee, where he supervised a global team that was responsible for compliance across all business and financial products, and in every major international market. Additionally, he was the court-appointed receiver of an SEC- and CFTC-regulated firm that engaged in a global securities and commodities fraud scheme and served on FINRA's Compliance Advisory Committee and International Advisory Working Group.
Cohen worked as an attorney at O’Melveny & Myers for more than a decade before joining Goldman Sachs .He also spent nine years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, rising to be Chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force.
Besides his law degree, Cohen earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University, and an undergraduate degree from Temple University.
In her new position Littman will serve as the lead advisor to Clayton on matters involving the Division of Enforcement, and assist on other regulatory and policy matters, according to the release. She joined the SEC in 2010, previously serving as a trial attorney and investigative attorney in the Division of Enforcement and as Counsel to the Director of Enforcement. She joined Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP in 2006, specializing in white collar and securities litigation resident in the Philadelphia office.
She earned her J.D. from Rutgers Law School in Camden and her M.B.A. from the Rutgers School of Business–Camden and an undergraduate degree from Florida State University.