The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced Austin Gerig as its Chief Data Officer, a new leadership position at the agency. The Chief Data Officer will help develop the SEC’s data management strategy and priorities, enable data analytics to support enforcement, examinations, and policymaking, and “ensure that the agency collects only the data it needs to fulfill its mission and can effectively secure.”
“I am pleased that Dr. Gerig has agreed to bring his broad experience in data strategy and management to this important new role for the Commission,” SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said in a statement. “He is well-suited to further our efforts to ensure there is a coherence between the information we collect and the information we need to carry out our mission. My colleagues at the Commission and I look forward to working with Austin as we strive to better both our use and our protection of data.”
Background
Gerig, currently Assistant Director of the Office of Data Science in the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA), will assume his new position on Feb. 3.
Gerig has headed DERA’s Office of Data Science since September 2016, managing a team of data scientists, data engineers, financial economists, and research associates.
He co-chairs the SEC’s Data Management Working Group and has served as the SEC’s representative on the Financial Stability Board’s Analytical Group on Vulnerabilities and its Financial Innovation Group.
“I’m honored to serve the SEC in this newly established CDO role,” said Gerig. “I look forward to coordinating the efforts underway across the Commission in data management and analytics while also enhancing data security.”
Before the SEC, Gerig was a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School. From 2008 to June 2011, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Technology in Sydney.
Gerig received his Ph.D. in physics in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a master’s degree in physics and a master’s in finance. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in physics.