The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced several changes to senior leadership positions within the agency. Among those named are: associate director for supervision, enforcement and fair lending; general counsel; senior advisor and counselor to the director; assistant directors for the Office of Financial Empowerment and the Office of Financial Education; and ombudsman.
“I am very pleased to announce these updates to the CFPB leadership team,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “As the CFPB continues moving forward with its important work, we are leveraging the collective expertise of our dedicated senior staff to better serve consumers and fulfill the CFPB’s mission of making consumer financial markets more fair, transparent, and competitive.”
The following CFPB staffing changes were announced on June 19:
Steven Antonakes, who will now serve as the associate director for supervision, enforcement and fair lending at the CFPB, previously served as the assistant director of large bank supervision at the bureau. Antonakes began his professional career as an entry level bank examiner with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Banks in 1990. He served in numerous managerial capacities before being appointed by successive governors to serve as the commissioner of banks from December 2003 until November 2010, becoming only the second career bank examiner to ever serve in that capacity. In addition, he served as first state voting member of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), as the vice chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), and as a founding member of the governing board of the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS). Antonakes received a B.A. from Penn State University, an M.B.A. from Salem State College, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Law and Public Policy from Northeastern University.
Paul Sanford, who has been serving as chief of staff for large bank supervision, will now serve as acting assistant director of large bank supervision.
Meredith Fuchs, who will now serve as CFPB general counsel, joined the bureau in 2011 as principal deputy general counsel before serving as chief of staff to Cordray. Prior to joining the CFPB, she served as chief investigative counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. Previously, Fuchs held positions as vice president and general counsel of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, litigation partner at Wiley Rein LLP, and an officer on the D.C. Bar Board of Governors. She is the recipient of the American Library Association’s James Madison Award. Fuchs served as a law clerk for Judge Patricia Wald on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Paul Friedman on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Garry Reeder, who has been serving as senior advisor to the deputy director, will now serve as acting chief of staff.
Len Kennedy, who will now serve as senior advisor and counselor to Cordray, most recently held the position of general counsel and CFPB associate director. In his role, he assembled and led the legal team that advises the director and bureau leadership. Prior to joining the CFPB, Kennedy served as general counsel, corporate secretary and chief government affairs officer for Sprint Nextel Corp., where he advised the board of directors, chief executive officer, and senior management on all aspects of the company’s business and legal affairs. He previously served for five years as general counsel of Nextel. In 2008, he was a recipient of Corporate Board Member’s America’s Top General Counsel Award. Kennedy twice served as a senior legal advisor at the Federal Communications Commission and has served on the board of many Washington-area non-profit organizations, including as co-president and co-chairman of the Appleseed Foundation, a national, nonpartisan legal organization promoting systemic reform locally. He is a graduate of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences and Law School.
Camille Busette joined the CFPB as assistant director of the Office of Financial Education. Before joining the bureau, Busette was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress where she focused on financial opportunities for low income populations. Previously, Busette served as vice president of EARN, the leading non-profit provider of micro savings services to low income families in the United States. She also was the deputy director of government relations for PayPal where she managed PayPal’s regulatory advocacy globally. She also headed the privacy function at Intuit, and the consumer and market research division at NextCard. Busette is a former Ford Foundation Post-doctoral Research Fellow, and holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago.
Clifford Rosenthal joined the CFPB as assistant director of financial empowerment. Before joining the bureau, he served for more than 30 years as president and chief executive officer of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions, the nonprofit association for credit unions serving low-income communities. Rosenthal laid the framework for the establishment of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund with concept papers he wrote in the late 1980s and co-founded the CDFI Coalition in 1990. His work at the Federation was marked by innovative efforts to expand the reach of credit unions to low-income populations, by establishing networks and programs targeting the African-American, Latino, and disability communities. He received the highest awards of the National Credit Union Foundation, the Opportunity Finance Network, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, the Network of Latino Credit Unions and Professionals and others. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University and was a mid-career Revson Foundation Fellow for the Future of the City of New York.
Wendy Kamenshine, the CFPB ombudsman, began at the CFPB in July 2011 as the acting ombudsman to establish the CFPB Ombudsman’s Office and officially joined the CFPB last month. Kamenshine previously served as the senior ombudsman for the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman’s Office. This year, she started her second term as chair of the Coalition of Federal Ombudsmen, an interagency group of federal ombudsmen. Before joining the federal government, Kamenshine practiced international trade law with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and was a research associate at the economics consulting firm, Economists Incorporated. She earned her A.B. in Economics with departmental and general honors from the University of Chicago and her J.D. from Duke University School of Law. She also has mediation training from Harvard’s Program of Instruction for Lawyers, the Northern Virginia Mediation Service, and Duke’s Private Adjudication Center.