SEC names David Grim director of Division of Investment Management

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday named a longtime agency staff member, David Grim, the director of the Division of Investment Management, the unit that has jurisdiction over investment advisers. Mr. Grim, who joined the SEC in 1995, had been serving as acting director of the division since February, when he took over from Norm Champ, who had led the operation since July 2012. The division is responsible for regulation of the asset management industry, including registered investment advisers and investment companies that sell mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Over the last few years, it has taken a leading role in the development of new rules for money market funds and has issued exemptive relief for new kinds of exchange-traded funds. If the SEC proceeds with a uniform fiduciary duty rule for retail investment advice, the division will play a key role. At an Investment Company Institute conference in Washington on Friday, SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White called Mr. Grim an “extraordinarily knowledgeable, well-respected leader within the [SEC] building and outside the building.” Mr. Grim began his SEC tenure in September 1995 as a staff attorney and rose to assistant chief counsel in 2007. He was appointed deputy director of the Division of Investment Management in 2013. NEVER WORKED IN FINANCIAL INDUSTRY Unlike his two predecessors as division director, Mr. Champ and Eileen Rominger, Mr. Grim has never worked in the financial industry. Before joining the SEC, Mr. Champ was general counsel at Chilton Investment Co.. Prior to her SEC stint, Ms. Rominger had spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and was the firm's global chief investment officer. She also worked for 18 years at Oppenheimer Capital. Even though he doesn't have industry background, Ms. White said that Mr. Grim was the best fit for the position at a time when the division is working on rules that address potential systemic risk in the asset management sector. “We have an aggressive agenda in the investment management space, which he knows very, very well,” Ms. White told reporters on the sidelines of the ICI conference.