President Barack Obama intends to designate Edith Ramirez as chairwoman of the FTC.

Ramirez, who joined the FTC as a commissioner in 2010, will replace the agency’s outgoing leader, Jon Leibowitz, a White House official told POLITICO. Her new role will still leave an opening for a third Democratic commission member.

“Over the past few years, Ramirez has been instrumental in ensuring there is robust competition and innovation in the high-tech marketplace, and has worked hard to protect the most vulnerable communities,” the White House official said.

The source declined to specify when Ramirez officially will be designated chairwoman or who the president might nominate for her current spot.

Ultimately, that forthcoming selection would require Senate approval.

Ramirez is widely seen as an antitrust and litigation expert. Before she arrived at the FTC, Ramirez worked for years at top private firms — Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, both in Los Angeles — and her portfolio included clients like Mattel, Walt Disney and Northrop Grumman on issues like copyright and antitrust.

Her term is set to expire in 2015.

While at the agency, she’s largely tracked closely with her fellow Democrats. Ramirez, for example, joined in FTC reports calling for Do Not Track technology, and she backed the majority conclusion of a two-year antitrust probe of Google — though the commissioner did raise questions about the form in which the FTC obtained some of its concessions.

Ramirez does boast notable political ties to the Obama administration. Back in 2008, she served as the campaign’s director of Latino outreach, and in 2012 Ramirez donated to the president’s reelection effort. Both Ramirez and the president worked together on the Harvard Law Review in the early 1990s.

Her selection also grants the president some cover as he faces heightened scrutiny over a perceived lack of diversity in the upper echelons of government. Since Obama’s reelection, a slew of female Cabinet-level officials — Lisa Jackson, Hilda Solis, Hillary Clinton and Karen Mills — have retired or announced plans to leave. To that end, some had pushed the administration to nominate a woman to lead the FTC or the Federal Communications Commission, both of which were thought to be open positions with highly qualified female candidates.

For now, though, the FCC’s leader, Chairman Julius Genachowski, has not signaled an imminent departure.

Some closer FTC watchers may be surprised that Ramirez’s fellow Democratic commissioner, Julie Brill, did not get the president’s nod.deleted the word ‘instead’

Brill is seen as far more outspoken and stylistic than her colleague, a contrast that seemed apparent when both were nominated for their positions in 2010. Brill, moreover, brought to the table what many saw as a dogged approach to consumer protection, stemming from her decades of work at the state level.

When news surfaced last year that Leibowitz intended to exit the FTC following completion of its Google antitrust case, sources told POLITICO they felt Brill worked hardest behind the scenes to seek the agency’s top post.

Ultimately, top tech industry groups and consumer advocates praised Ramirez on Thursday. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the leading Democrat on two of the chamber’s competition-focused panels, said in a statement that the new chairwoman “is a highly respected FTC commissioner who will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to her new position as head of the FTC.”

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 8:03 a.m. on February 28, 2013.