Robert Khuzami, the new Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division who began working at the agency on March 30, spoke to the staff on his first day to outline four major themes he’d like them to pursue: being “strategic, swift, smart and successful.” In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Khuzami emphasized that he believes “there needs to be a real sense of urgency…. When there is a great deal of time that has elapsed between the conduct and the atonement, the law-enforcement message is diluted, and the opportunity for culture and behavioral change is greatly reduced.”
Khuzami also said that he hopes to use the current climate, in which the SEC has been heavily scrutinized and criticized, as an opportunity to effect change that might not otherwise be possible. He believes that under the current circumstances, people may “have a greater appetite and receptiveness to considering new ways of doing things. I think in many ways the stars have lined up well.”
