SEC Said to Hire Goldman’s Storch to Be Chief Operating Officer

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission hired Adam Storch, a 29-year-old former employee in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s business intelligence unit, as the enforcement division’s first chief operating officer, according to people familiar with the decision.

The COO, who started Oct. 13, has “a great deal of background” in technology and managing processes and the pace of work, Robert Khuzami, head of enforcement, said yesterday in Washington. Storch, who worked since 2004 in a unit at Goldman Sachs that reviewed contracts and transactions for signs of fraud, will be charged with making the unit more efficient. Storch, reached by telephone at the SEC, declined to comment.

Khuzami announced the position in August as part of the unit’s biggest overhaul in three decades. He is taking steps to add front-line investigators, speed inquiries and create specialized units after the agency was faulted for missing Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion fraud.

Storch holds degrees in accounting and finance from the State University of New York at Buffalo and studied at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has certifications in accounting, fraud examination and auditing.

Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Storch was a senior analyst at accounting firm Deloitte & Touche and an intern at Neuberger Berman LLC, a New York-based asset management firm.