SEC Names Co-Heads of Enforcement

The rare dual appointment was widely anticipated, with Canellos having acted as the director since January 2013 when his predecessor, Robert Khuzami, left the regulator. Ceresney comes from Debevoise & Plimpton LLC, the law firm where the new head of the SEC, Mary-Jo White, was recently a partner. Prior to Debevoise, where he worked with White and represented individuals and attorneys on white-collar tickets, Ceresney served as a deputy chief appellate attorney in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Prior to his role as acting director, and now co-director, of the Division of Enforcement, Canellos was the director of the SEC's New York Regional Office, overseeing 400 employees. The Division of Enforcement, by contrast, is the largest arm of the SEC, with 1,200 employees. He worked in the private sector at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy from 2003-2009, and spent nine years as an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York.