Former SEC Commissioner Gallagher to Join Robinhood

Dan Gallagher, former commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, will become chief legal officer of Robinhood, the commission-free trading website.

Gallagher, who has been a member of Robinhood’s board of directors since October, was most recently partner and deputy chair of the securities department at the international law firm WilmerHale in Washington.

He will replace Anne Hoge, who is leaving later this month to attend to an illness in the family, according to the company.

Gallagher will oversee all global legal functions including corporate counsel, regulatory and product counsel.

“As a Board member, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with the incredible people at Robinhood driving the company’s mission forward and I’m excited to contribute even more directly in my new capacity as Chief Legal Officer,” Gallagher said Wednesday in a statement. “I look forward to doing my part to help Robinhood reach even greater heights in serving its customers.”

Since the coronavirus pandemic took hold, Robinhood has had two outages, angering investors who said they were prevented from trading and capitalizing on the extreme market volatility just before the S&P 500 dropped more than 7% and triggered circuit breakers that temporarily stopped trading.

— Check out Robinhood Fined $1.25M by FINRA for Customer Order Routing Method on ThinkAdvisor.