The SEC announced that Rosalind Ramsey Tyson, Director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office, will retire at the end of March after 30 years of service with the agency.  She's led the Los Angeles office since 2007, overseeing the enforcement and examination staff of 170 people, covering Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii. Mary Schapiro, Robert Khuzami, and Carlo di Florio each extolled Ms. Tyson's contributions to the Commission.  In turn, Ms. Tyson noted that she was particularly grateful for the opportunity to participate in the substantial restructuring and refocusing of both the examination and enforcement programs during Chairman Schapiro’s tenure.” Under Ms. Tyson’s leadership, ... the LA. office brought enforcement actions in a significant number of subprime and financial crisis-related cases:

• Countrywide - charging CEO Angelo Mozilo and 2 other executives with deliberately misleading investors about significant credit risks taken in efforts to build and maintain the company’s market share.  Mozilo also was charged with insider trading. Mozilo agreed to a record $22.5 million penalty and permanent officer and director bar to settle the charges.
• IndyMac Bancorp – charging 3 execs with misleading investors about the mortgage lender’s deteriorating financial condition.
• New Century – charging 3 executives with misleading investors as the lender’s subprime mortgage business was collapsing.  The execs agreed to pay more than $1.5mn to settle the charges, along with other sanctions.\
• Brookstreet and brokers – charging the firm and CEO with defrauding customers in its sales of risky mortgage-backed securities, and charged 10 brokers with making misrepresentations to investors.

As member of the National Exam Program’s Executive Committee and co-chair of the Risk and Exam Process Steering Committee, Ms. Tyson was instrumental in shaping and implementing significant changes to make the exam program more effective and efficient. Ms. Tyson implemented similar-in-scope changes to streamline the enforcement management structure as well as the operational structure of the L.A. office. Ms. Tyson, 63, began with the L.A. office as an enforcement staff attorney in 1982, following several years in private practice. She later became Branch Chief of the Branch of Full Disclosure, which reviewed initial public offering registrations of small business issuers. Ms. Tyson was named an Assistant Regional Director of the Los Angeles office in 1988, and became an Associate Regional Director in 1993. Ms. Tyson graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Languages and Linguistics, the University of Hawaii, and Stanford Law School. She is a member of the California bar.  [SEC PR 12-28, 2/13/12]