On January 24, 2013, President Obama nominated Mary Jo White to be Walter's successor as chair.

Walter held a Democratic seat on the Commission, succeeding Annette Nazareth, who left the SEC in January 2008 to work in private practice.

She held the comparable position at the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) before its 2007 consolidation with NYSE Member Regulation and redesignation as FINRA.

Prior to joining the NASD, she served as General Counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Before joining the SEC, she was an attorney with a private law firm in Washington, DC, Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin and Kahn.

… [T]here are significant hurdles to overcome over the next three years in order for the Commission to determine to accept IFRS reporting from U.S.

"[10] Another issue she addressed, while at the National Association of Securities Dealers, was the NASD's regulatory activities regarding inappropriate sales of certain investment products to members of the armed forces.

Testifying before a congressional subcommittee in May 2006 concerning the NASD's financial education programs focused on military service members and their families, she addressed issues raised by a particular broker-dealer, First Command Financial Planning, Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, which had been making inappropriate sales of products and services, including the sale of an investment product called Periodic Payment Plans or PPPs.

First Command had targeted and sold more than a half million complicated and often extremely expensive PPPs to servicepersons.

[11] Walter is married to Ronald Alan Stern, who served as the chief antitrust attorney for General Electric until September 2014.