The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) announced the appointment of Robert Rice as director of the Division of Enforcement and Investigations (DEI), effective March 31.
Rice assumes the role from Mark Adler, who is retiring. Adler has served as DEI’s acting director since September 2022 and previously held several senior roles within the division from 2010 to 2020, including acting director from June 2018 to January 2020.
As DEI’s new director, Rice will “oversee and direct the PCAOB’s investigations and enforcement of violations of its rules, professional standards, and other applicable securities regulations,” the PCAOB said.
Rice’s appointment comes at a time when the PCAOB announced its intent to enhance its enforcement efforts. “The PCAOB is using every tool in our enforcement toolbox to ensure there are consequences for putting investors at risk, and bad actors are removed,” said PCAOB Chair Erica Williams.
With more than 30 years of white-collar litigation and investigations experience, including in the private sector and a long history of public service in government, Rice joins the PCAOB from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, where he served as special counsel since 2022.
Earlier in his career Rice also served as chief counsel to SEC Chair Mary Jo White from 2013 to 2015, providing legal advice and counsel on a broad range of the Commission’s regulatory matters, including enforcement actions, as well as compliance and inspection-related matters.
Rice began his public service career as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he served from 1991 to 2000, before becoming deputy chief of the Southern District’s Criminal Division, assisting in the oversight of approximately 160 federal prosecutors. Rice also served stints in the private sector as a law firm partner, focusing on criminal investigations and prosecutions, regulatory investigations and enforcement proceedings, and internal investigations. 
Jaclyn Jaeger is a contributing editor at Compliance Chief 360° and a freelance business writer based in Manchester, New Hampshire.