Faculty
Gary Gensler is Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management as well as of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He conducts research and teaches on artificial intelligence, finance, financial technology, and public policy.
Gensler most recently served as the 33rd Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden Administration. He led the agency through a robust reform agenda to enhance efficiency, resiliency, and integrity in the $120 trillion U.S. capital markets.
Previously, Gensler served as Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama Administration, leading reform of the $400 trillion swaps market. He also served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton Administration as well as Senior Advisor to Senator Paul Sarbanes in writing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002). He also was Chairman of the Maryland Financial Consumer Protection Commission (2017-2019).
Gensler co-hosts (with Simon Johnson) the 'Power and Consequences' podcast. He co-edited ‘The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration’ (CEPR Press, 2025) and authored a book on investing for everyday Americans, The Great Mutual Fund Trap, (Broadway Books, 2002).
Prior to his public service, Gensler worked at Goldman Sachs, where he became partner in the Mergers & Acquisition department, headed the firm’s Media Group, led fixed income & currency trading in Asia, and lastly co-headed Finance, being responsible for the firm's worldwide Controllers and Treasury functions.
He is a recipient of the 2014 Tamar Frankel Fiduciary Prize and the US Treasury’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award. Based on student nominations, he won the MIT Sloan 2019 Outstanding Teacher Award.
Gensler earned his undergraduate degree in economics and his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
He has three daughters, and is from Baltimore, Maryland.
Gensler, Gary and Lily Bailey, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6223-20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, November 2020. SSRN Link.
Here are six titles connected to the MIT Sloan School of Management covering topics such as economic strategy, entrepreneurship, talent management, and cultural evolution in the age of AI.
MIT Sloan’s Gary Gensler and Peter R. Fisher advise investors to develop an AI investment thesis and avoid overconfident investing during policy pivots.
Professor of the practice Gary Gensler joined "Bloomberg This Weekend" to discuss the SEC's move to end the quarterly reporting requirement. "Economic study after economic study has shown that quarterly reporting is a good thing. It creates a market environment where you can get a little higher price earnings ratio and a little less cost of capital because your investor base knows what's going on," Gensler said. (1:09:34)
Professor of the practice Gary Gensler, a former chair of both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said prediction markets have gone beyond what the law intended. "I never once heard a member of Congress or their staffs suggest that the law they were writing, acting upon, and voting on was for our little agency, the CFTC, to have oversight over sports betting," he said.
Levered lending credit cycles move in waves. For the past five decades or so, each wave has been about 15-20 years long. And each has had a transition point that was associated with a new kind of debt financing. In every one of these cycles, professor of the practice Gary Gensler said, "a fulcrum opens up gaps in the marketplace." Financial innovators pile in, and incumbents begin to lose market share to new players who are doing new kinds of deals. "As Mark Twain purportedly said," Gensler concluded, "'history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.'"
In this episode of CNBC's "Morning Call," professor of the practice Gary Gensler discussed private credit markets, stable coins, and the impact of the Iran war on the U.S. and global markets. For additional media and to learn more, visit Power & Consequences, a podcast created by MIT Sloan professor Simon Johnson and Gensler.
An exciting collaboration between MIT's Sloan School of Management and Schwarzman College of Computing, this immersive, two-week program on campus dives deep into both the technical and business aspects of artificial intelligence, providing a comprehensive understanding of AI's impact across industries. The program will bridge the gap between AI technology and business leadership through practical, hands-on learning experiences, ensuring participants can apply AI strategies effectively in their organizations.
