Mr. Aguilar served as a Commissioner at
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from July 31,
2008 to December 31, 2015. Commissioner Aguilar was
originally appointed by President George W. Bush and was
reappointed by President Barack Obama in 2011. Commissioner
Aguilar became the eighth longest-serving Commissioner in
SEC history, and is one of only three Commissioners to have
been nominated by two U.S. Presidents from two different
political parties.
Commissioner Aguilar’s tenure started
only a few weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and
the financial turmoil that followed and only a few months
before one of the largest financial frauds in U. S. history
– the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme – was exposed.
Consequently, the Commission began one of the most
transformational periods in its history.
During Commissioner Aguilar’s service, the Commission
underwent a significant internal restructuring by, among
other things, creating a panoply of new Divisions and
Offices, and substantially restructuring existing Divisions
and Offices. In addition, the Commission
entered one of its most active rulemaking periods, and
promulgated or amended regulations that impacted almost all
aspects of the capital markets.
Commissioner Aguilar worked to
modernize the SEC’s rules to reflect the innovation and
changes that had long transformed the capital markets.
He was an early advocate for the importance of
focusing on cybersecurity issues and led the effort to bring
together public and private sector experts as part of the
SEC’s first Cybersecurity Roundtable held in March 2014.
He is a recognized leader in the nexus of
cybersecurity, investor protection, and publicly traded
companies.
Prior to his appointment to the SEC
Commission, Mr. Aguilar was active in both business and law.
His law practice involved matters pertaining to general
corporate and business law, international transactions,
investment companies and investment advisers, securities
law, and corporate finance. He also focused on issues
related to corporate governance, public and private
offerings (IPOs and secondary offerings), mergers and
acquisitions, mutual funds, investment advisers,
broker-dealers, and other aspects of federal and state
securities laws and regulations. Commissioner Aguilar's
previous experience includes serving as the general counsel,
head of compliance, executive vice president, and corporate
secretary of Invesco, with responsibility for all legal and
compliance matters regarding Invesco Institutional. In
addition, he was also Invesco’s Managing Director for Latin
America in the 1990’s, and president of one of Invesco’s
broker-dealers. His career also included tenure as a partner
at various prominent national law firms.
Currently Commissioner Aguilar serves
on the Boards of Directors of the following companies:
Envestnet, Inc. (NYSE: ENV), a leading provider of
unified wealth management technology and services to
investment advisors; Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc.
(NYSE: DFIN), a financial communications and data services
company serving both the investment and capital markets
worldwide.
He is also on the Board of Advisors of Personal
Capital Corporation, an asset management firm using online
financial tools to combine transparency into customer
finances with personal attention from financial advisors.