The US Securities and Exchange Commission has promoted two staff members to head the Division of Enforcement's Asset Management Unit, which targets investment advisors, investment companies and private funds.

Julie Riewe and Marshall Sprung are co-chiefs of the unit, having served as deputy chiefs for the 75 attorneys and industry experts comprising the team since May 2012.

The pair take over for Bruce Karpati, who led the unit from its creation in January 2010 until he left the agency last May.

The dual promotion follows Riewe and Sprung’s instrumental role “in developing several proactive risk-based initiatives” aimed at fraud trends in asset management that have emerged, as well as "advisors' undisclosed receipt of compensation from broker-dealers and their affiliates to reward the advisors for making certain types of investments”, said the SEC in a statement.

The appointments come at a time when the SEC, along with other regulators around the world, have had to contend with a rising demand for tighter oversight on the financial services industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.

Both people have supervised investigations involving misconduct by investment advisers, private funds, and mutual funds; addressing issues such as trading practices, fraudulent asset valuations and conflicts of interest. To this end, Sprung played a central role in the enforcement actions against investment adviser AXA Rosenberg and its founder, for concealing an error in the computer code of a quantitative investment model that the firm used to manage client portfolios, the SEC said.

Julie Riewe and Marshall Sprung both worked as lawyers and law clerks prior to joining the SEC, in 2005 and 2003 respectively.