SEC Looking to Hire Hedge Fund Vets

The Securities and Exchange Commission task force on hedge funds, buyout funds and mutual funds is looking to hire five fund managers, chief operating officers or executives with “direct exposure to trading and operations,” according to a help-wanted ad it placed last month. The SEC has also retained executive search firm Korn/Ferry International.

Following the SEC’s failure to detect Bernard Madoff’s fraud, the SEC named Robert Khuzami enforcement director and has begun cracking down on structured instruments through revisions to Regulation AB and on hedge funds through a proposed large trader reporting system.

“There’s been a lot of soul-searching within the enforcement division and the agency about what is the best way to identify and catch misconduct as early as possible,” Robert Kaplan, co-chief of the SEC hedge fund task force, told Bloomberg News. “Normally, law enforcement is inherently reactive.”

The SEC realizes that with a salary of only about $200,000, it will have a hard time recruiting a hedge fund manager at the top of their game and, thus, is hoping to find someone near retirement interested in public service.