Kara Marlene Stein is an American attorney who currently serves as a board member of the

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is a nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the audits of public companies and other issuers in order to protect the interests of investors and further t ...

, known as PCAOB. She was sworn in on November 18, 2021, and her current term is scheduled to end on October 24, 2026. Stein also served on the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

(SEC) from August 2013 till January 2019. In May 2013, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

nominated her to serve as a Democratic member of the Commission to succeed Elisse Walter. Stein was confirmed by the Senate and started her tenure at the SEC in August 2013. During her tenure on the SEC, Stein was often described as the most progressive member of the body, and has been described as an ally of Senator

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren ( née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a ...

. In 2021, she was mentioned as a potential candidate to lead the

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury that was established by the National Currency Act of 1863 and serves to charter, regulate, and supervise all natio ...

(OCC).

Education and career

Stein graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1986 and

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...

in 1991. Following her education, Stein was an associate at the law firm

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. It is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston. It was formed in 2004 thr ...

(WilmerHale). Before being appointed to the SEC, Stein was an aide to Democratic Senator Jack Reed of

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

and helped write the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Though soft-spoken in public, Stein took aggressive stances behind the scenes in pushing for strict investor protection rules at SEC. Stein sparked a debate at the SEC and in Congress over the routine issuance of waivers to companies that had previously been sanctioned by prosecutors for financial misconduct. In April 2014, Stein published a lengthy dissent to an SEC corporate waiver granted to

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group NatWest Group plc is a British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The group operates a wide variety of banking brands offering personal and business banking, private banking, investment banking, insurance and ...

(RBS), which had previously been charged by the Justice Department with criminal violations. Stein argued that the SEC waiver for RBS risked establishing a policy "that some firms are just too big to bar." The dissent won applause from Democratic Senators

Sherrod Brown Sherrod Campbell Brown (; born November 9, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Ohio, a seat which he has held since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Ohio's ...

and

. Again in an April 2015 speech, Warren criticized the SEC's policy of granting "Well-Known Seasoned Issuer" waivers, saying the agency misses an opportunity to deter bad behavior when it rubber-stamps these waivers. But Republicans at the SEC bristled at the use of waivers as another enforcement tool. Stein subsequently dissented to SEC waivers granted to BNP Paribas, Citigroup, and

Oppenheimer & Co Oppenheimer Holdings is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company offering investment banking, financial advisory services, capital markets services, asset management, wealth management, and related pro ...

Post-SEC career

After departing the SEC and prior to her appointment to PCAOB, Stein served on the faculty of several law schools, including serving as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, Lecturer-in-Law at

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...

, and Director of the AI & Capital Markets Initiative for the Center for Innovation at

UC Hastings College of Law The University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, UC Hastings was the first law school of the University of California as ...

. Stein served on the ten-member Financial Stability Task Force coordinated by the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...

and

University of Chicago Booth School of Business The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Chicago Booth or Booth) is the graduate business school of the University of Chicago. Founded in 1898, Chicago Booth is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and is associated with 10 N ...

. She was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Investors Exchange but resigned when she joined PCAOB.

References

21st-century American politicians Living people Members of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Yale College alumni Yale Law School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Obama administration personnel Trump administration personnel University of Pennsylvania Law School faculty {{US-politician-stub