[4] Schapiro served in various roles as a financial services regulator in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

In 2005 Schapiro oversaw a wide-reaching probe into gift-giving and entertaining on Wall Street, uncovering several instances of lavish and excessive activities, which led to many charges.

[19] In January 2009 the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Schapiro's appointment by President Barack Obama to be the SEC's first female permanent chair.

[5] Schapiro partially blamed the financial crises of 2008 on deregulation, telling senators that the regulatory system had "not kept pace with the markets and the needs of investors".

[20] During Schapiro's tenure at the SEC, the agency improved its enforcement program, creating new structures, procedures, and programs to better address the modern financial markets, including: bringing 735 enforcement actions in FY 2011 and 734 actions in FY 2012; obtaining more than $11 billion in ordered disgorgements and penalties since FY 2009; prosecuting the largest insider trading scheme discovered to date, winning a record $92.8 million fine in the civil case against the CEO of the Galleon Hedge Fund; and bringing financial-crisis related actions against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among others.

[1] Schapiro also led the agency through one of its most active rulemaking periods, and enacted many other investor protection measures, including adopting more than three quarters of the rules required by the Dodd-Frank Act.

[28] Also under Schapiro, the SEC issued guidance in 2010 that addressed how public companies are disclose information about the impact of climate change on their business.

[29] Upon her departure from the SEC in December 2012, President Obama commended Schapiro's contributions as chair in an official White House statement.

[30] In April 2013, Schapiro joined Promontory Financial Group where she served as Advisory Board Vice Chair until leaving the firm for Bloomberg LP in 2018.

[36][37] Under her leadership, the Task Force released voluntary recommendations on how companies should disclose information about how climate-related factors could impact their business.

[8] Schapiro said of the process that she was worried the final report would be ignored as a "wonderful paperweight for people's desks," but the G7 endorsement of their work was "enormously important" and signaled that global leaders understood climate risk was an "existential problem.

[44] The SASB is an independent nonprofit organization that sets standards to guide the disclosure of financially material sustainability information by companies to their investors.

[54] Since it was announced at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP26) in Scotland, Schapiro has served as vice chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).