Barbara Roper to serve as senior adviser to SEC chair

Barbara Roper

Gary Gensler calls consumer advocate Roper 'a champion for investors'; she has worked for 35 years at the Consumer Federation of America.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed consumer advocate Barbara Roper as senior adviser to Chairman Gary Gensler.

Roper is currently the director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. At the SEC, she will focus on issues relating to retail investor protection, “including matters relating to policy, broker-dealer oversight, investment adviser oversight and examinations,” the SEC said in a release.

“Barb is a champion for investors and will provide invaluable counsel on behalf of the American public,” Gensler said in the release. “I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with her on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the critical market reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act, and I’m thrilled to collaborate with her again at the SEC.”

Roper has worked at the CFA for 35 years. She has a particular interest in investor protection, particularly the standards set for investment professionals who advise retail investors.

Roper has conducted studies of the financial planning industry, state oversight of investment advisers, and state and federal financial planning regulation.