A financial industry trade group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has named Kenneth E. Bentsen, Jr., its president, as chief executive.
He succeeds Judd Gregg, the former Republican senator and governor from New Hampshire, who joined Sifma just this past May. After leaving the Senate in 2011, Mr. Gregg worked as an “international adviser” to Goldman Sachs.
In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Gregg said his decision to step down “reflects my personal need to spend less time commuting to Washington from New Hampshire and slowing a hectic schedule.”
Mr. Bentsen, 54, is a former investment banker in municipal and mortgage finance with Drexel Burnham Lambert and George K. Baum & Company. From 1995 to 2003, he served as a Democratic Congressman from Texas. When in Congress, Mr. Bentsen sat on the House Financial Services Committee. Before joining Sifma in 2009, he was president of the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association. He is a nephew of Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1988, who died in 2006.