Andy Wels joins as chief compliance counsel after spending years as head of legal and compliance affairs at financial services firms including Bloomberg, Cantor Fitzgerald, TD Ameritrade, Dreyfus and JP Morgan Chase. Before his private sector career, he was an enforcement attorney with the SEC and staff attorney with FINRA.  

Meanwhile, Rich Chen joins MarketCounsel’s regulatory group with around 12 years of experience working at New York-based financial services-focused law firms including Arnold & Porter, Schulte Roth and K&L Gates.

Mark Simmelkjaer, who joins as business counsel, started his career within the corporate finance and securities group of the New York law firm Akin Gump and then became an investment banker before directing the legal affairs of a startup through its sale. 

In other recent moves at the firm, in May it recruited Loren Morris and Bob Powell as director of strategic development and director of special projects, respectively.