[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Ethiopis Tafara, the SEC Director of International Affairs (OIA) may not be a household name among compliance and legal professionals, but at the SEC he certainly made a name for himself.  Mr. Tafara will bring to a close 13 years of public service, having joined the SEC in 2000.  For the last 10 years, he has served as director of OIA.

International Affairs ...  advises the Commission on cross-border enforcement and regulatory matters, and engages in regulatory conversations with authorities outside the U.S.  While at the SEC, Mr. Tafara had many accomplishments, including the following:

• restructured OIA so as to enable it to cover matters beyond the traditional areas of enforcement cooperation and development of international principles

• enabled SEC to reach converged rather than diverging solutions as it addressed global regulatory concerns.

• represented SEC in major multilateral regulatory bodies - e.g.,  Int'l Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO);  Financial Stability Board (FSB).

• helped establish regular bilateral dialogues with regulators of Britain, Japan, India China, Turkey and the Committee of European Regulators.

• co-founded U.S. Treasury-led Financial Markets Regulatory Dialogue with the European Commission.

• expanded and refined the SEC's technical assistance program, transforming it into a premier training and support program for capacity building with foreign regulatory and law enforcement counterparts

Mr. Tefara received his J.D. from Georgetown Law, ...  a Certificate of Attendance from The Hague Academy of International Law, and his A.B. from Princeton.  \

"Ethiopis has gained a well-deserved reputation around the globe as a dedicated ambassador of investor protection.  His effective leadership was characterized by his dedicated efforts to achieve a better understanding globally of common regulatory concerns and approaches as a means of reaching solutions with compatibility across borders. Ethiopis's vision together with his diplomacy and drive has been a significant component in raising standards of international cooperation and regulation to levels that would have been unthought of before his SEC tenure." -- SEC Chairman Elisse Walter.

Filling Mr. Tefara's void, the SEC appointed Dr. Robert Fisher, a Deputy Director in OIA, as Acting Director.  Dr. Fisher, who holds a PhD and an AB in Economics from Duke and a J.D. from Harvard Law, joined the SEC in 2002 as a financial economist in the Office of Economic Analysis.          [SEC PR 2013-22, 2/15/13].