Under Chairman Jay Clayton, who concluded his tenure at the Securities and Exchange Commission in late December, the SEC experienced an era of great productivity and rational reform. He furthered the historic mission of the SEC while maintaining nonpartisan credibility and independence in a highly charged political environment. Chairman Clayton affirmed the Commission's tripartite purpose—to protect investors, to maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and to facilitate capital formation—throughout his time in office, rightly emphasizing in public statements that these three elements should be viewed as correlated rather than as contradictory.