Michael S. Piwowar was formerly the executive vice president of Milken Institute Finance. He was nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate to serve as a commissioner for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2013 to 2018. Piwowar was designated acting chairman of the Commission by President Trump.
Piwowar was previously the Republican chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and served as the lead Republican economist on the four SEC-related titles of the Dodd-Frank Act and JOBS Act. During the 2008 financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, Piwowar served in a one-year fixed-term position at the White House as a senior economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining the White House, Piwowar worked as a principal at the Securities Litigation and Consulting Group, visiting academic scholar and senior financial economist at the SEC, and as an assistant professor of finance at Iowa State University. He received a B.A. in foreign service and international politics from Pennsylvania State University, an MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and a Ph.D. in finance from Pennsylvania State University.