Former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White is to be the next head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a White House spokesman announced Thursday.

Press secretary for U.S. President Obama, Jay Carney, confirmed in a press briefing that the former prosecutor will be named to head the regulatory agency. He noted that as a U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York she prosecuted “a number of large-scale white-collar crimes in complex securities and financial institution fraud.”

“As you know, the SEC plays an essential role in the implementation of Wall Street reform and rooting out reckless behavior in the financial industry. The president believes that that appointment… demonstrate[s] the commitment that he has to carrying out Wall Street reform, making sure that we have the rules of the road that are necessary and that are being enforced in a way that ensures we don’t have the kind of financial crisis that we had that led to the worst economic crisis that we’ve seen since the Great Depression,” he said.

In response to the news, the securities industry lobby group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) praised the pick. “Mary Jo White’s knowledge of the securities markets, and prior commitment to public service and investor protection, make her a solid choice to serve as chairman of the SEC,” said Kenneth Bentsen, Jr., executive vice president, public policy and advocacy at SIFMA.

New York state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, released a statement of support too, saying, “As U.S. attorney, Ms. White demonstrated a strong commitment to aggressively enforcing one set of rules for all, and her outstanding record of bringing white collar criminals to justice speaks for itself. She is a tough, experienced prosecutor, which is exactly what the SEC needs right now to restore investor confidence.”