The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday named Andrew Donohue chief of staff, replacing Lona Nallengara, who last week said he would leave the agency in June.

Mr. Donohue is returning to the SEC after leaving in 2010. In his previous role at the agency, he directed the division of investment management from May 2006 until November 2010.

Most recently, Mr. Donohue worked as a managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co. He previously held senior roles at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Oppenheimer Funds, the SEC said in a news release.

As chief of staff, Mr. Donohue will be a senior adviser to SEC Chairman Mary Jo White on policy, management, and regulatory issues.

Mr. Donohue's "deep knowledge of asset management will be especially useful as the Commission advances its rule-making agenda for addressing potential risks in asset management and considers a uniform fiduciary standard," Ms. White said.

As the top mutual-fund overseer in his earlier SEC role, Mr. Donohue has been credited by the agency with improving the oversight of money-market funds, as well as for his efforts to overhaul so-called 12b-1 fees, in the fund industry. He also crafted a regulation to ban asset managers from making campaign contributions to elected officials to win contracts to manage public pension funds.

Write to Lisa Beilfuss at lisa.beilfuss@wsj.com

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