[4] Atkins began his career as a lawyer in New York City with Davis Polk & Wardwell, focusing on a wide range of corporate transactions for U.S. and foreign clients, including public and private securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions.

[5] Before his appointment as commissioner, Atkins assisted financial services firms in improving their compliance with SEC regulations and worked with law enforcement agencies to investigate and rectify situations where investors had been harmed.

Most prominent among these situations was Bennett Funding Group, Inc., a $1 billion leasing company that perpetrated the then-largest "Ponzi" fraud to date in U.S. history.

Assisting the company's court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, Atkins served as crisis president of Bennett's sole surviving subsidiary, according to his SEC biography.

In December 2016, Atkins joined a business forum assembled by President-Elect Trump to provide strategic and policy advice on economic issues.