Earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he plans to nominate Jay Clayton, a top Wall Street lawyer who represented Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Ally Financial, Barclays Capital and a number of other large financial institutions during and after the financial crisis, to serve as the new chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
If approved, Clayton will replace Mary Jo White, who recently announced that she planned to step down as the chair of the SEC at the end of the Obama administration.
Now, another one of the Obama administration’s top financial regulators announced that she plans to step down, giving Trump another opportunity to pick the new head of a financial regulator.
On Friday, Edith Ramirez, the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission announced her resignation, effective Feb. 10, 2017.
According to her FTC bio, Ramirez became FTC chair in March 2013, after serving as an FTC commissioner for nearly three years.
The FTC is lead by five commissioners, which are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Each commissioner serves a seven-year term. According to the FTC, no more than three commissioners can come from the same political party.
The president chooses one commissioner to act as chairman, meaning President Trump will choose Ramirez’s replacement.
According to the FTC, under Ramirez’s leadership, the FTC brought “nearly 400 law enforcement actions covering a range of consumer protection issues and approximately 100 enforcement actions challenging anticompetitive mergers and business conduct in major sectors of the economy, including the healthcare provider, pharmaceutical, retail, and energy markets.”
Ramirez called leading the FTC the “honor of a lifetime,” but didn’t provide a reason for her resignation.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to lead the Federal Trade Commission and to have played a role in advancing American consumers’ ability to navigate fast-paced digital markets and promoting business competition across the economy,” Ramirez said. “I thank my fellow commissioners and all of the talented FTC staff for their support and dedicated public service during my tenure.”
