Nekia Hackworth Jones

Nekia Hackworth Jones is the Deputy Director (Southeast) of the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. In this role, Ms. Jones supervises the agency’s investigations and litigated matters across the Washington, DC, Atlanta, Georgia, and Miami, Florida offices. Prior to her current role, Ms. Jones served as the Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office from 2021 to April 2025, leading over 100 professionals in the office’s enforcement, examinations, and business operations programs.

Ms. Jones joined the Commission in March 2021 from the Atlanta office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, where she was a litigation partner specializing in government investigations, internal investigations, and white-collar criminal defense. Prior to joining Nelson Mullins, Ms. Jones spent nearly a decade in government service. Ms. Jones worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, where she investigated and prosecuted complex fraud cases, including securities and investment fraud, mortgage fraud, tax fraud, healthcare fraud, and public corruption. She also served in the Department of Justice’s Office of the Deputy Attorney General in Washington, D.C., first as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, and then as Associate Deputy Attorney General and Executive Director of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Jones worked as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York, NY, and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP in Atlanta, GA. Ms. Jones also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Ms. Jones received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree (cum laude) from Emory University in 1999, and J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from Harvard University in 2004.