SEC to lose Hester Peirce, deepening a commissioner crisis

Hester Peirce, one of the Securities and Exchange Commission's three remaining commissioners and its most prominent crypto advocate, will leave the agency in November for the hallowed halls of academia.

This week, the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia announced it will be welcoming Peirce as an associate professor – signaling a departure that would strip the already hobbled SEC of one of its most recognizable voices while raising fresh questions about the commission's ability to function at full capacity.

The university announcement adds to a cascade of senior departures at the SEC that has reshaped – and in some ways destabilized – the agency over the past year.

The commission is designed to operate with five members, with no more than three from the same party, a structure meant to ensure impartiality. Today it has three Republicans: Chairman Paul S. Atkins, Commissioner Mark Uyeda, and Peirce herself, who has been serving on an 18-month extension since her second term expired in June 2025.

As noted by Reuters, President Donald Trump has not nominated anyone to fill the two Democratic seats that have sat empty since the departures of former Commissioners Caroline Crenshaw and Jaime Lizárraga earlier this year. When Peirce steps down in November 2026, the commission will be down to two members.

Read more: SEC's lone Democrat commissioner departs, leaving all-Republican leadership to steer markets

An SEC rule adopted in 1995 permits the commission to conduct business with fewer than three commissioners, but a two-person body would test that provision in ways that have no modern precedent – and could complicate rulemaking, enforcement actions, and other functions that advisors and their compliance teams depend on.

The broader commissioner exodus has unfolded alongside significant turbulence in the SEC's division of enforcement. Judge Margaret A. Ryan resigned as enforcement division director in March after just half a year in the role. She was succeeded on an acting basis by Principal Deputy Director Sam Waldon. Shortly after in early April, the SEC named David Woodcock, a partner at the Dallas and Washington, D.C. offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, as the permanent enforcement director, with his tenure beginning May 4.

Two weeks after announcing Woodcock's appointment, Jason Burt, the division of enforcement's deputy director for specialized units, departed the agency after more than 22 years of service.

The churn at the enforcement level matters for the advisory industry. Burt's long career at the SEC touched investigations and litigation across the asset management, complex financial instruments, cyber and emerging technologies, market abuse, and public finance abuse units – areas with direct relevance to registered investment advisors and broker-dealers operating under SEC oversight.

Peirce's announced departure is arguably an even-more headline-grabbing loss. Known widely in the industry as "Crypto Mom" – a nickname she earned through years of advocacy for clear, rule-based regulation of digital assets rather than what she and others characterized as regulation by enforcement – Peirce was designated by Chairman Atkins in February last year to lead the SEC's newly formed Crypto Task Force.

Read more: Mark Uyeda-led SEC launches crypto task force

Her resume reflects an unusually deep institutional knowledge of the agency. Before her 2018 appointment to the commission by Trump, Peirce served as senior counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; as counsel to then-Commissioner Paul Atkins during his first term; and as a staff attorney in the SEC's Division of Investment Management.

She also conducted financial markets regulation research at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Case Western Reserve University and a law degree from Yale Law School.