The SEC named Vanderbilt Professor Craig Lewis as its next Chief Economist and Director of the Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation (RiskFin).  Dr. Lewis currently is a visiting scholar, teaching finance, at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management;  he'll join the SEC next month.  

RiskFin was created in September 2009 to provide interdisciplinary analysis to help inform the Commission’s policymaking, rulemaking, enforcement and examinations.  RiskFin, the SEC’s first new division in 37 years, was created to act as the agency’s “think tank.”  The Division encompasses the former Office of Economic Analysis, Office of Risk Assessment, and Office of Interactive Disclosure.  Its staffers have expertise in disciplines including economics, risk analysis, finance, law, mathematics and statistics.

With his "clear understanding of the complexities of financial markets, ... [Dr. Lewis] will not only lead our qualified team of expert economists, but will also help to inject strong data-driven analysis into the SEC’s decision-making process," Said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro.

Dr. Lewis had served as a visiting academic fellow at the SEC from January to July 2010, and returned for a second "tour of duty" in January 2011.   Over those periods he provided advice on policy issues, worked on developing analytic approaches to identify violations of securities laws, and analyzed the OtC derivative securities market. 

    Dr. Craig Lewis' Profile.   Dr. Lewis has taught corporate finance and economics since 1983 and has been on the faculty at Vanderbilt since 1986.  He's won multiple awards for teaching excellence, and been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck B-School, Donau University in Austria, and Goethe University in Germany.  In addition to teaching, Dr. Lewis has published research on volatility in stock and futures markets, margin adequacy, corporate earnings management, corporate financial policy, executive compensation, selective disclosure, and herd behavior by equity analysts.

Dr. Lewis is a CPA and received his BA in accounting from Ohio State, his MS and PhD in finance at University of Wisconsin at Madison.   [SEC PR 11-114, 5/20/11]