News

Bowen Appointed to Trading Commission

August 01, 2014

Sharon Y. Bowen (JD-MBA ’82) was officially sworn in as a commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on June 9.

President Obama nominated Bowen in December 2013 to serve as one of five CFTC commissioners, and the US Senate confirmed her nomination on June 3. She will fill the seat formerly occupied by Bart Chilton, who left the commission at the end of March.

Prior to joining the CFTC, Bowen worked as a corporate partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins, LLP, where she represented private equity firms, corporations, and financial and institutional clients on corporate, finance, and securities transactions. She also served as cochair of two Latham & Watkins committees on diversity.

Before nominating her to the CFTC, Obama appointed Bowen the acting chair of the board of directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a nonprofit membership corporation that protects investors from losing funds and securities in financially troubled brokerage firms.

In addition to her work with Latham & Watkins and the SIPC, Bowen has served as a member of the Law School’s Law Board, including a term as chair from 2009 to 2011. She has received many awards for her work; Black Enterprise named her one of America’s top black lawyers, and in 2011 she won the New York State Bar Association Diversity Trailblazer Award.