Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro has tapped former SEC official Meredith B. Cross as the agency’s Director of the Division of Corporation Finance.

Cross replaces Shelley Parratt, who has been acting director of the division since January, when former Director John White left to rejoin the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Cross rejoins the SEC from the Washington D.C. office of the law firm WilmerHale, where she was a partner in the Corporate Practice Group and served as chair or co-chair of that group for more than seven years.

Cross previously served at the SEC from 1990 to 1998, where she started as an Attorney Fellow in the Office of Chief Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance, and served in various roles, eventually becoming Deputy Director in the Division of Corporation Finance in 1994, a role she held until she left in 1998. She received the SEC’s Law and Policy Award in 1993 and 1997.

Commenting on her appointment, Schapiro said Cross has “clearly established herself as a sensible problem solver and a brilliant mind on corporate securities law.”

“She will be instrumental as we consider important issues as shareholders’ access to the proxy to nominate directors, and ways to improve the overall quality and clarity of disclosure provided to investors,” Schapiro said in a statement.

Some former SEC officials praised her appointment.

William McLucas, who worked with Cross at both the SEC, where he was fomerly Enforcement Director, and at WilmerHale, where he’s currently a partner, called Cross’s appointment “an enormous loss to us and an enormous asset to the SEC.”

“She’s an extraordinary talent and the SEC is lucky to get her,” he said.

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher partner Brian Lane, who worked with Cross at the SEC when he was director of the Division of Corporation Finance, says Cross will be “an excellent director.” 

“She is a strong advocate for investors and the SEC staff, while being pragmatic in identifying workable solutions to challenging legal issues,” Lane says.

Likewise, former Corporation Finance director David B.H. Martin, now a partner at Covington & Burling, described her as “a very strong appointment, bringing excellent private practice experience, prior background at the SEC and a deep understanding of the securities laws and the capital markets that those laws cover.”

Noting that Corporation Finance “has a full agenda,” Martin said Cross “will help execute that agenda effectively and with superb judgment.”

In a press release, Cross said she is “honored and grateful” to have the opportunity to come back to the SEC.

Before her previous tenure at the SEC, Cross worked in private practice in the securities department of King & Spalding in Atlanta. She also clerked for the Hon. Albert J. Henderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.