The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the promotion of Amelia A. Cottrell to Associate Regional Director for Enforcement in the agency's New York Regional Office.

Ms. Cottrell, who came to the SEC in 2005, has been serving as an Assistant Regional Director in the New York office and as a member of the Enforcement Division's nationwide Market Abuse Unit. In her new position, she will help supervise a staff of approximately 180 attorneys, investigators, accountants, and paralegals in the New York office's enforcement program.

"Amelia has been an extraordinary leader in this office and is widely respected both within and outside of the SEC," said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC's New York Regional Office. "I am thrilled that she will be joining the senior ranks of the New York office."

Ms. Cottrell said "I am honored by this appointment and excited to continue working with my friends and colleagues in the SEC's New York Regional Office to fulfill the agency's mission to protect investors."

Ms. Cottrell fills the Associate Regional Director slot that was previously held by Sanjay Wadhwa, who was recently promoted to Senior Associate Regional Director for Enforcement in the New York office.

Ms. Cottrell, 39, assumed a managerial role in the New York office in 2008 and was promoted to Assistant Regional Director in 2010. She has been a key contributor to many significant SEC enforcement actions, including a major insider trading case against hedge fund firm CR Intrinsic and an insider trading case against Tiger Asia Management that resulted in a $44 million settlement. Other cases include a $25 million settlement with the world's largest inter-dealer broker for displaying fake trades and misleading customers, insider trading charges against a former global consulting firm executive and his friend who once worked on Wall Street, and an enforcement action against a complex market manipulation scheme in biopharmaceutical stocks.

Before joining the SEC staff, Ms. Cottrell worked as a litigation associate for five years at the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and for two years in the Chicago office of Jones Day. Ms. Cottrell earned a J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Williams College in 1995.