Raymond James Chief Working Officer Scott Curtis is the brand new head of FINRA’s Board of Governors, succeeding outgoing chair and FusionIQ CEO Eric Noll.
FINRA’s Board of Governors chosen Curtis as its subsequent chair throughout its assembly final week. The board additionally thought-about amendments to standing guidelines on corporations’ supervision of reps’ exterior enterprise actions.
Curtis had already served as governor and huge agency consultant since 2023. In response to FINRA, Noll was stepping all the way down to take a job that might “battle along with his function” as a public governor.
“I’m excited to proceed constructing upon the work Eric led in offering strategic steerage for FINRA’s important function of defending buyers and safeguarding the integrity of the capital markets,” Curtis stated.
Curtis has been with Raymond James since 2003 and steered its home wealth administration enterprise as head of its non-public consumer group since 2018 earlier than being promoted to COO in 2024.
His elevation was a part of the agency’s succession plan, which restructured its government suite. The plan included saying that then-CFO Paul Shoukry would succeed Paul Reilly as CEO, turning into the fourth particular person to steer the agency in its historical past (Shoukry took over the function efficient Feb. 20). Tash Elwyn succeeded Curtis in heading the agency’s non-public consumer group.
FINRA’s board of governors oversees the group’s administration. It consists of 10 seats for trade members and 11 for “public members,” who should have “no materials enterprise relationship” with a dealer/seller or self-regulatory group to qualify.
Seven trade seats correspond to agency measurement. Governors serve three-year phrases (and can’t serve greater than two consecutive phrases), and the board meets a minimum of 4 instances a 12 months.
Throughout the assembly, the board was briefed on makes an attempt to modernize the expertise its examination employees makes use of. It additionally accredited a discover to ask for public touch upon revised guidelines for out of doors enterprise actions. The brand new rule would exchange two present laws with a single rule to “cut back pointless compliance burdens” for corporations reviewing exterior enterprise actions.
FINRA continues to face litigation all through the nation, difficult its constitutionality, following a number of selections made prior to now 12 months by an ideologically reconstituted Supreme Court docket.
In a single case, Alpine Securities is asking the U.S. Supreme Court docket to think about listening to its years-long case towards FINRA, doubtlessly establishing a showdown that would cripple the brokerage regulator and different self-regulatory organizations prefer it.
