The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced that Smeeta Ramarathnam will be Deputy Director at its Office of Credit Ratings. She begins her new role later this month.

In this new position for the office, Ramarathnam will oversee various office activities, including examinations and monitoring of nationally recognized statistical rating organizations, rulemaking, and related initiatives.  She joins the office after serving for the past seven years as chief of staff for Commissioner Luis Aguilar.

Ramarathnam joined the SEC in 2005. Before her appointment to Commissioner Aguilar’s staff in 2008, she served as counsel to Commissioner Roel Campos and as a senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel and in the Division of Investment Management.  Prior to that, she was an associate at a law firm and focused on investment company and investment adviser regulation and securities litigation. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Deborah Chasanow of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Ramarathnam received her B.A. with honors from Stanford University and her J.D. degree from Stanford Law School and is the immediate past president of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington, D.C. Area.