SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul S. Atkins, a 1980 Wofford College graduate, will speak Thursday, Oct. 13, on “The Politics of International Business” at the college.

The 11 a.m. lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Leonard Auditorium in Main Building.

Atkins was a commissioner for the SEC from 2002 to 2008. In 2009, he was appointed by Congress to serve as a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Before his government service, Atkins was a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers and predecessor firm Coopers & Lybrand, where he advised financial services firms on regulatory compliance, internal controls and risk management issues.

Currently, Atkins is chief executive of Patomak Global Partners, LLC.

He received his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Wofford College and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law. A frequent speaker and television commentator on regulatory and capital markets issues, he is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, USA Today, and Politico, as well as scholarly journals such as the Harvard Business Law Review and the Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law.