No Respect.

If Richard Grasso was the obvious villain in last month's upheaval at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair William Donaldson was the unsung hero. After all, Grasso's obscene compensation package might never have come to light if Donaldson had not requested in March that the heads of the country's stock exchanges review their management structures.Early this year, almost immediately after taking the reins from Harvey Pitt--whom the press had roundly vilified for taking a soft approach on Enron and WorldCom--Donaldson began quietly but forcefully reforming the agency and going after a whole range of hitherto-ignored industries. When Bush announced in December that Donaldson would be taking over the SEC, the country's papers and industry observers were almost uniformly skeptical. With Congress's support secure, Donaldson has proceeded to focus on issues that Pitt had largely ignored: corporate governance, stock exchanges, executive compensation, and hedge funds. And, while many saw April's $1.4 billion settlement between the SEC and ten investment banks as insufficient (Senator Charles Grassley called it "half a loaf"), Donaldson made it clear that the deal was only the beginning of reform in the investment community and that more enforcement actions would be forthcoming if the banks didn't imbibe his reform message.