SEC Republican commissioner Elad Roisman to step down

Elad Roisman, one of two Republicans on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said Monday that he plans to step down by the end of January.

His departure will leave Hester Peirce as the only GOP commissioner at the agency as Gary Gensler pursues an ambitious rule-making agenda that is opposed by some business groups. Gensler, who took over in April, is joined by Democrats Allison Herren Lee and Caroline Crenshaw.

Roisman, who has been a commissioner since 2018, played a key role in Trump-era efforts by the SEC to rein in proxy advisory firms and to make it easier for companies to block submissions from newer stockholders who don’t own many shares. He pushed back on the agency’s efforts under Gensler to undue those changes. 

“It has been the utmost honor to work alongside my extraordinary SEC colleagues, who care deeply about investors and our markets,” Roisman, who briefly served as acting chair of the SEC at the end of the Trump administration, said in a statement. He didn’t say what he plans to do next.

Roisman, who is an attorney, previously worked as a staffer on the Senate Banking Committee and as a lawyer for the New York Stock Exchange early in his career.