Kristen Clarke

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights

The United States Department of Justice

Eric Belsky

Director, Division of Consumer & Community Affairs, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Eric Belsky has served as Director of the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since 2014. He oversees the Federal Reserve’s work in consumer- and community reinvestment-focused supervision, research, outreach, and policy analysis, with the aim of promoting a fair and transparent consumer financial services marketplace and effective community development. The Division also conducts research on the financial and economic conditions of low and moderate-income individuals, households, and communities.

A specialist in housing finance, economics and policy, he brings more than 25 years of experience to the Division. Before joining the Federal Reserve Board, he served as managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. He also held the positions of director of Housing Finance Research at Fannie Mae, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders, and taught at both Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In addition, in 2001 and 2002, Belsky served as research director for the bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission established by the Congress of the United States.

Mr. Belsky has co-edited five books and authored numerous articles and book chapters and has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Housing Research and Housing Policy Debate. He holds a Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. from Clark University.

Mark Pearce

Director, Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection, FDIC 

Mark is the Director of the FDIC’s Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection (DCP) and leads the FDIC’s efforts to protect depositors and consumers nationwide. The Division has responsibility for the FDIC’s compliance and CRA examination and supervision for state non-member institutions, research and policy development related to consumers’ use of financial products and services, depositor and consumer assistance, community affairs, financial education and economic inclusion efforts.

Prior to joining the FDIC, Mark was the Chief Deputy Commissioner of Banks for the State of North Carolina. He has served as President of the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators. Previously, Mark was President of the Center for Responsible Lending and has worked for Self-Help, one of the largest community development financial institutions in the nation.

Mark graduated from Harvard Law School (1996) and has a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lynn Woosley

Managing Director, Asurity Advisors

Lynn Woosley is a Managing Director with Asurity Advisors. She is a seasoned executive with extensive risk management experience in consumer protection, regulatory compliance, consumer and commercial credit risk, credit and compliance risk modeling, model governance, regulatory change management, acquisition due diligence, and operational risk in both financial services and regulatory environments.

Over the last three decades, Lynn has held leadership positions including Senior Vice President and Fair and Responsible Banking Officer; Group Vice President for Wholesale Transaction Modeling; and First Vice President for Portfolio Management within the Enterprise Risk Management division of a top 10 bank. Prior to joining the private sector, Lynn served as Senior Examiner and Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. She also has 6 years’ experience in financial services consulting.

With strong knowledge and experience across multiple risk disciplines, Lynn has been a featured speaker for several banking, compliance, and CRA conferences across the country. Lynn has authored numerous articles and presentations on financial institution risk management and consumer protection issues. She has also developed training materials related to fair lending, fair housing, UDAAP, credit risk management, credit scoring, and consumer protection topics.

Lynn holds a BBA and an MBA from Middle Tennessee State University and an MS Finance from Georgia State University. She is a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager and a Commissioned Examiner of the Federal Reserve System. Lynn has also served as both Chair and Vice-Chair of the Consumer Bankers Association’s Fair and Responsible Banking Committee.

Jesse Van Tol

President & CEO, National Community Reinvestment Coalition

Jesse Van Tol is NCRC’s President and CEO. He has been with NCRC since
2006 and has held a variety of leadership positions, eventually becoming
chief executive in 2018. His work championing fair and responsible banking
has resulted in nearly $300 billion in new investments in low- and
moderate-income communities through Community Benefits Agreements
with banking institutions. Through his leadership, NCRC has grown today
to an organization with assets of nearly $150 million and an annual budget
of $35 million.

Jesse is a popular speaker and lecturer, and has testified before Congress,
and appeared on NPR, in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Washington Post, POLITICO and many other outlets. He also sits on a
variety of advisory boards, including the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer
Advisory Council, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Affordable Housing
Advisory Councils. He is a member of the consumer advisory councils of
Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, TRUIST, Fifth Third, Huntington
National Bank, First Horizon, KeyBank, Quicken Loans, Santander and
numerous others. Jesse was also a Senior Fellow with Humanity in Action,
an international human rights group, and a communications institute
Fellow with Opportunity Agenda.

Jesse received his bachelor’s degree in History and International Studies
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and received an executive
education certificate from the Harvard Kennedy school as part of
NeighborWorks’ Achieving Excellence.

Dave Adkins

CRA/Fair Lending Policy Specialist, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OCC

Dave has served on the OCC CRA/Fair Lending Policy Team since February 2020. That position plans and directs activities associated with identifying risks and developing/providing guidance on policy issues affecting the compliance process for CRA and Fair Lending laws and issues.

From 2015-2020, Dave served on a 5-year rotation focusing on supervision of Consumer Issues in OCC Large Bank Supervision. He currently serves as the OCC’s Acting CRA and Fair Lending Technical Expert.

Dave initially joined the OCC Policy Group in 2011 after the closure of the Office of Thrift Supervision under Dodd Frank. He previously served in the HUD Office of General Counsel.

He holds a B.A. from Christopher Newport University, an M.U.R.P. (Master of Urban and Regional Planning) from Virginia Tech and a J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law.

Grace Brasington

Senior Managing Director, Asurity Advisors

Grace is a risk and compliance management expert and financial services industry leader with over 30 years of global corporate and consulting experience. At banks, FinTech companies, and consulting firms, her oversight responsibilities have included risk and compliance, fair and responsible banking, CRA, deposit operations, financial crime, consumer banking, payment systems, information technology, complaints management, mortgage, consumer and commercial lending, and business strategy. Areas of focus have included risk assessments, risk mitigation and management, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, data management, compliance management systems, and organizational transformation.

In her current role, Grace leads the Asurity Advisors practice as Senior Managing Director. In this capacity, she provides input and strategic direction relative to the Risk Exec product and leads the go to market activities for advisory service offerings.

Grace’s corporate roles have included Chief Compliance Officer of SunTrust Banks and Chief Risk Officer of Lender Processing Services (now Black Knight Financial Services, a leading FinTech company). At IBM’s Watson Financial Services Division, she led the design, development, implementation, and acquisition strategies of a number of technologies focused on regulatory compliance, risk management, and financial crime. Her consulting positions have included Partner at Guidehouse (formerly Navigant Consulting), where she led client development and relations regarding FinTech, financial crimes, and fraud. At KPMG, she was Director of the Southeast Risk Advisory Practice, focused on enterprise banking clients.

Grace is a frequent speaker on emerging technology, recently including a keynote on RegTech compliance implications at an American Banker event, as well as addressing international conferences and meetings of regulators on subjects including artificial intelligence for risk management, cognitive technology in boardrooms, and building trust and confidence in big data.
Grace earned a BS in Finance and Management from Florida State University. She has been recognized by the industry on several occasions for her technology innovation and was awarded Industry Academy Membership by IBM in 2018.

Linda Crank

Senior Vice President – Director of CRA, Centennial Bank / Happy State Bank A Division of Centennial Bank

Linda Crank is the Senior Vice President & Director of CRA with Centennial Bank / Happy State Bank a Division of Centennial Bank. With over 39 years of financial service industry experience specializing in CRA/HMDA/Fair Lending/UDAAP, she has had a specialized emphasis on exam management, risk assessments, data, and performance analytics in addition to her work with non-profits. Prior to joining Centennial Bank, she held multiple senior leadership roles at both financial institutions as well as financial service providers.

James Wylie

Associate Director,  Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Fair Lending Oversight

James Wylie is the Associate Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Fair Lending Oversight. The office works to ensure Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks provide fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to mortgage credit and housing. James’s team is responsible for fair lending supervision as well as equity policy at FHFA. Prior to joining FHFA, James worked on fair housing and fair lending at the CFPB and HUD, including implementing the Dodd-Frank Act regulations and HUD’s disparate impact and affirmatively furthering fair housing rules. James has also been an instructor and course developer for the National Fair Housing Training Academy. James has a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in history from the University of Tulsa.

Nicholas Roesler

SVP, Senior Compliance Director and Fair and Responsible Banking Officer, U.S. Bank

Nicholas (Nick) Roesler (RACE-ler) is Senior Vice President, Senior Compliance Director and the Fair and Responsible Banking Officer at U.S. Bank. Nick has decades of banking and regulatory compliance experience including risk management, audit, and examination leadership in both public and private banking sectors. Nick currently leads U.S. Bank’s Fair and Responsible Banking Division, which is a team of fair lending, UDAAP, and HMDA professionals providing enterprise-wide subject matter expertise, compliance risk management, and oversight across products, business areas, and activities. Prior to joining U.S. Bank, Nick was a Commissioned Examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis where he led examinations covering consumer compliance regulations and prohibitions; including fair lending, UDAP, HMDA, and CRA.

Robert D. Broeksmit, CMB

President & Chief Executive Officer, Mortgage Bankers Association

Robert (Bob) Broeksmit is President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Bob is a senior finance executive and corporate officer with over 35 years of experience in the mortgage sector. He has directed all aspects of lending activities, including marketing, sales, operations, secondary marketing, loan servicing, and default management. He has also served as a mortgage underwriting expert testifying on many large, high-profile cases.

Prior to joining MBA in 2018, Bob served as President and Chief Operating Officer with Treliant, heading the firm's mortgage litigation support practice and serving diverse financial services clientele including large banks, independent mortgage lenders, community banks, credit unions, and service providers to the mortgage industry. As a Washington-based financial services consultancy, Treliant's mortgage practice included strategic advisory for executive management and corporate boards; litigation defense, including file reviews, litigation strategy, expert reports, and expert testimony; CFPB examination preparation and implementation of mortgage regulations promulgated by the CFPB and other regulators; and operational aspects of mortgage banking, ranging from origination to servicing and loss mitigation.

Before Treliant, Bob held senior leadership positions in the mortgage business, including fourteen years with Chevy Chase Bank (including after its purchase by Capital One), where he was Executive Vice President and President of its B.F. Saul Mortgage Company subsidiary. Bob also was a Vice President at Prudential Home Mortgage for seven years. He has overseen annual originations of $9 billion, a balance sheet of $10 billion in residential mortgages, and a servicing portfolio of $20 billion. He also held positions at Great Western Mortgage, Krupp Residential Mortgage, and The Money Store.

Bob has served as the Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association's Residential Board of Governors and as a member of its Board of Directors. Firms under his leadership have garnered multiple awards for servicing operations excellence, including Freddie Mac's Tier One and Hall of Fame designations. He is a Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) and a graduate of Yale University.

Ken Scott

Counsel, Relman Colfax

Ken is Counsel at Relman Colfax and joined the firm in 2022. He is focused on counseling financial institutions on best practices for complying with fair lending and consumer protection laws, and on navigating financial technology issues. Prior to joining the firm, Ken served two tours of duty as a Trial Attorney at the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Housing and Civil Enforcement Section, where he investigated and litigated fair housing and fair lending cases. Ken has also worked at a number of large financial institutions, where he served in positions ranging from fair lending counsel to head of consumer fairness compliance.

Amy Magee

Senior Manager Compliance - Fair Lending, First Citizens Bank

Amy Magee is Sr. Manager Compliance - Fair Lending with First Citizens Bank. She has worked 12 of her 16 years in the financial industry as a compliance professional. She is a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM) and Fair Lending Expert (FLE) and has held compliance positions with three financial institutions with assets over 16 billion. Amy is a return speaker on the redlining panel from our inaugural Fair Lending Forum in 2022. She has many years of HMDA, mortgage origination/servicing compliance experience in addition to her Fair Lending expertise.

Mike Calhoun

President, Center for Responsible Lending (CRL)

Mike Calhoun is president of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), the policy affiliate of Self-Help, the nation's largest community development lender. He considers himself "fortunate to work with an extraordinarily talented staff and a dedicated coalition of organizations fighting to provide economic opportunity and advancement for low- and moderate-income families and families of color."

For more than 30 years, Mike has been on the front lines of working for economic justice. At CRL, he provides management and policy leadership. Based in DC, he often testifies in Congress and appears frequently in national media as an expert on financial issues. Prior to joining CRL in 2002, Mike led several lending divisions at Self-Help, providing responsible consumer loans, mortgages and small business loans, and heading an innovative program to provide national capital for affordable home loans. He has represented families to secure civil rights and consumer protections, including working for ten years as a legal aid attorney. He is a former member and chair of the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Advisory Council.

Mike received his BA degree in economics from Duke University, and his JD degree from the University of North Carolina. When he is not advocating on behalf of fair lending and civil rights, Mikes loves time with family, gardening, sailing and playing basketball.

Nikitra Bailey

Executive Vice President, National Fair Housing Alliance

Nikitra Bailey serves as executive vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). As a member of NFHA’s senior leadership team, she leads the organization’s Public Policy and Communications divisions and assists in managing Resource Development. Ms. Bailey develops and spearheads visionary, comprehensive policy, and communications strategies to implement NFHA's mission of eliminating all forms of housing discrimination, ensuring everyone has decent, stable, affordable housing in well-resourced, opportunity-rich communities free from bias, and supports over 200 member organizations. She provides thought leadership for the organization; liaises with policymakers and other stakeholders; and works collaboratively with NFHA's departments, membership, and Board of Directors to promote housing equity and equitable opportunities.

Prior to joining NFHA, Ms. Bailey served as an executive vice president at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a research and policy advocacy organization that seeks to build a fairer and more inclusive financial services marketplace. CRL is an affiliate of one of the nation’s largest CDFIs, Self-Help. At CRL, Ms. Bailey advanced national and state public policy reforms that create access to safe and responsible credit on affordable terms for individuals and communities traditionally underserved by the banking system, especially people of color. She directed CRL’s mortgage policy advocacy; managed resource development; and served as the principal strategist for coalition partnerships that span civil rights, faith, women, labor, and community advocates across the nation. Ms. Bailey’s coalition building leadership positioned CRL as a leader in helping to secure passage of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During the pandemic, Ms. Bailey led CRL’s advocacy efforts on the American Rescue Plan Act’s Homeowner Assistance Fund, helping to secure $10 billion in relief for homeowners hardest-hit by COVID-19, including support for socially disadvantage individuals and fair housing initiatives. She also played a key role in reforming the Paycheck Protection Program to direct funding to minority depository institutions and community development financial institutions and ensure equitable relief for small businesses and businesses owned by people of color.

Ms. Bailey is an author of numerous reports and articles on predatory lending’s impact on people of color and women and a frequent media contributor. She has provided expert testimony to Congress on a range of fair and affordable housing issues and reform of the Government Sponsored Enterprises. Ms. Bailey co-leads the Black Homeownership Collaborative’s work stream on fair housing and consumer protection and is on the board of directors of the National Institute for Minority Economic Development, North Carolina Housing Coalition, and Consumer Reports. Ms. Bailey served on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Community Advisory Board from 2018-2021. She holds a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and a B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University.

Patrice Alexander Ficklin

Fair Lending Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Patrice Alexander Ficklin has served as Fair Lending Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since May 2011. As Fair Lending Director, Ms. Ficklin leads the CFPB’s efforts to ensure fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory access to credit for consumers and communities. Her responsibilities include oversight and enforcement of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), the federal law that prohibits discrimination in any aspect of a credit transaction, as it pertains to the activities of the bank and nonbank institutions under the CFPB’s jurisdiction.

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Ficklin was Counsel to the civil rights law firm of Relman, Dane & Colfax. There she supported the work of civil rights groups and also helped mortgage lenders and servicers ensure their compliance with the Fair Housing Act and ECOA. Prior to joining the Relman firm, Ms. Ficklin served as Associate General Counsel on Fannie Mae’s fair lending team, where she advised clients in the single family business and credit policy divisions on predatory lending, fair lending and fair housing issues, and worked to extend mortgage credit to thin- and no-file borrowers.

During her tenure at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) Ms. Ficklin practiced in the corporate transactions and employment law groups, and co-authored a Supreme Court amici brief on behalf of several prominent civil rights organizations in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, a major affirmative action case. Finally, she served as an arbitrator of ECOA claims made by Black farmers in Pigford v. Glickman, a class action lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture. As a Pigford arbitrator, she presided over mini-trials and ruled on several farmers’ claims of discrimination in the Department’s lending programs, awarding monetary damages.

Ms. Ficklin is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Law School.

John C. Redding

Partner, Alston & Bird

John C. Redding is a co-leader of Alston & Bird’s Consumer Financial Services Team. He focuses his practice on all aspects of consumer financial services at both the state and federal levels.

John regularly advises banks, auto finance companies, private equity firms and other investors, loan servicers, and debt purchasers and collectors on regulatory, compliance, and enforcement matters involving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and other state and federal regulatory and enforcement agencies. He also represents financial institutions in state attorney general investigations.

As an in-house attorney, John served as general counsel and associate general counsel to several financial services and software companies, where he ran legal operations, engaged in corporate restructuring projects, and managed large-scale litigation. He supervised regulatory compliance, loan origination, servicing, and debt collection matters.

John is nationally ranked by Chambers USA in Financial Services Regulation: Consumer Finance (Enforcement & Investigations). He has been recognized by Legal 500 in the Financial Services – Regulatory practice area, and he has twice received Client Choice Awards for Banking – California.

Stuart Rossman

Director of Litigation, National Consumer Law Center

Stuart Rossman is a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and has served as director of litigation since 1999. Stuart is the co-editor of NCLC’s Consumer Class Actions and coordinates NCLC’s annual Consumer Class Action Symposium. Stuart is a past co-chair of the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) Board of Directors. Since 1992, he has been a member of the adjunct faculty at the Northeastern University School of Law where he teaches courses in Civil Trial Advocacy and was appointed the 2010 Givelber Distinguished Lecturer on Public Interest Law. He also is a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School teaching a course on Consumer Class Actions. Previously, he was a private trial attorney in Boston and served as Chief of the Trial Division and Chief of the Business and Labor Protection Bureau at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Stuart has received numerous honors and awards, including the Thurgood Marshall Award by the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He is a 1975 graduate of the University of Michigan, summa cum laude and graduated from Harvard Law School, cum laude in 1978.

Sarah Brons

SVP, Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Products and Services, RiskExec

Sarah Brons is Senior Vice President of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Products and Services for RiskExec, Inc. Sarah brings in-depth community development and CRA compliance expertise developed through experience in bank examining, bank CRA program development, and industry engagement.

Sarah joined RiskExec from American Express where she served in the American Express National Bank Center for Community Development as Director leading the CRA Grant and Service Programs.
She previously held Community Development Officer and CRA Officer positions in two other large banks.

Prior to joining to her roles in banks, Sarah served as a bank examiner with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency where her responsibilities included conducting CRA exams for banks of all sizes.

Sarah earned her BSBA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Theresa McKenna

Sr. Vice President and Director of Fair and Responsible Banking, Trustmark National Bank

Theresa McKenna is currently Sr. Vice President and Director of Fair and Responsible Banking at Trustmark National Bank, headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi. Theresa has extensive compliance, fair lending, and mortgage operations experience with over 37 years in banking and previously held Fair Lending Director positions with U.S. Bank and Santander Bank.

Ann Epstein

Assistant Director of the Office of Competition and Innovation, Consumer Financial Protection Board

Ann Epstein serves as the Assistant Director of the Office of Competition and Innovation at the Consumer Financial Protection Board. Ms. Epstein leads the office in its mission to promote competition and innovation that benefits consumers in the financial products and services market. The office aims to fulfill this statutory mandate by identifying structural problems that block new competitors from entering the market and using data to gauge how market innovation impacts consumers. In this role, she has accountability for the operationalization of the Small Business Lending rule, where the CFPB is striving to use technology forward solutions to ensure that accurate data reporting and publication is as seamless as possible. Before arriving at the Bureau in 2020, Ms. Epstein worked for many years at Freddie Mac where she held various leadership roles in product development and management. Prior to Freddie Mac, Ann held leadership and other roles in technology and consulting companies. Ms. Epstein earned her Master of Business Administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and her Bachelor of Science in Economics as well as a Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Engineering through the Jerome Fisher Program of Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathleen Ryan

Senior Vice President, Fair and Responsible Banking, American Bankers Association

Kathleen “Kitty” Ryan is Senior Vice President for Fair and Responsible Banking at the American Bankers Association. She focuses on fair lending issues at ABA, including anti-discrimination laws, laws prohibiting unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) section 1071 rules. Kitty joined ABA from Morrison & Foerster LLP, where she was counsel in the financial services practice group, working on fair lending and mortgage issues. Kitty is the former Deputy Assistant Director for the Office of Regulations at the CFPB, where she was instrumental in the planning and oversight of mortgage- and fair-lending related rulemakings, including mortgage servicing regulations, Truth in Lending Act-Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (TILA-RESPA) Integrated Disclosures rules, and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Prior to joining the CFPB, Kitty served as Senior Regulatory Counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she focused on regulatory issues impacting mortgage and fair lending issues. Kitty also developed her extensive mortgage and fair lending related experience while with the Consumer and Community Affairs Division of the Federal Reserve Board (FRB).

Gloria C. Banks

Executive Vice President and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Synovus

Executive Vice President and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Banks began her career with Synovus in September of 2012. She has more than 40 years of banking experience and previously worked as Vice President, National Corporate Risk Compliance Manager for Comerica Bank.

Education

• BBA, Business, Detroit College of Business
• MSA, Administration, Central Michigan University

Affiliations

• American Bankers Association National Compliance School
• American Bankers Association Graduate School of Compliance Management
• American Bankers Association Risk Management School
• Institute of Certified Bankers - Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM)
• Board member, National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC)
• Board Member and Chair of Audit Committee, Bank Administration Institute (BAI)
• American Bankers Association, Certified Enterprise Risk Professional (CERP)

Honors

• Recipient, Synovus Game Changer Award, 2016
  

Summary of Responsibilities
Banks is responsible for developing compliance and ethics strategy and directing and monitoring the company’s overall compliance and ethics programs. She is also responsible for ensuring the bank’s activities comply with all consumer regulatory standards.

Chris J. Willis

Partner, Troutman Pepper

Chris is the co-leader of the Consumer Financial Services Regulatory Practice Group at the firm. He advises financial services institutions facing state and federal government investigations and examinations, counseling them on compliance issues including UDAP/UDAAP, credit reporting, debt collection, and fair lending, and defending them in individual and class action lawsuits brought by consumers and enforcement actions brought by government agencies.

Chris also leverages insights from his litigation and enforcement experience to help clients design new products and processes, including machine learning marketing, fraud prevention and underwriting models, product structure, advertising, online application flows, underwriting, and collection and loss mitigation strategies.

Chris brings a highly practical focus to his legal advice, informed by balancing a deep understanding of the business of consumer finance and the practical priorities of federal and state regulatory agencies.

Chris speaks frequently at conferences across the U.S. on consumer financial services law and has been featured in numerous articles in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, American Banker, National Law Journal, BNA Bloomberg, and Bank Safety and Soundness Advisor.

Varda Hussain

Principal Deputy Chief of the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section,  Department of Justice Civil Rights Division

Varda Hussain currently serves as the Principal Deputy Chief of the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. In this role, Ms. Hussain supervises fair lending cases involving a pattern or practice of discrimination, including matters under the Department’s Combating Redlining Initiative. She also leads the Section’s work on algorithmic discrimination. From 2018 to 2021, Ms. Hussain served as the Managing Counsel for Fair Lending Enforcement at the Federal Reserve, where she oversaw fair lending examinations and managed fair lending compliance through supervision and enforcement. From 2008 to 2018, Ms. Hussain served in various roles in the Civil Right Division of the Department of Justice, including Special Litigation Counsel for Fair Lending where her responsibilities included management of fair lending enforcement, including in the areas of redlining, pricing discrimination, and algorithmic bias.
Ms. Hussain is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia School of Law.

Anneliese Lederer

Director of Fair Lending and Consumer Protection, National Community Reinvestment Coalition

Anneliese Lederer is the Director of Fair Lending and Consumer Protection at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an association of over 600 community-based groups seeking to promote a just economy through work with community leaders, policymakers, and financial institutions to champion fairness and end discrimination in lending, housing, and business.

 Six years ago, Anneliese established a multidisciplinary working group with marketing professors at Utah State University, Brigham Young University, Rutgers University, and Florida State University that together researches discriminatory behavior in the small business lending marketplace. Their work has been published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Public Policy and Marketing and the University of Pennsylvania's Law Review Journal, The Regulatory Review. Their most recent academic paper was recently selected for publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marketing Research. Numerous media outlets, including ABC News, the Washington Post, and the Miami Herald have quoted Anneliese's white paper on access to PPP loans. In addition, her work has been referenced in witness testimony in congressional hearings.

Anneliese is a Catholic University Columbus School of Law graduate and Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. 

Amy Hinzmann

Chief Revenue Officer, Oliver

Amy leads Oliver's managed services sales, marketing, customer success, and technical support efforts. Her focus is working with clients to get the most out of Oliver’s resources to improve their collective litigation, drawing on her more than 20 years of experience in financial services, legal technology and consulting.

Before joining Oliver in 2023, Amy held various executive leadership roles and led diversity initiatives for a legal services consulting firm. Prior to that, she was vice president and counsel for Merrill Lynch’s brokerage business. She began her career representing brokerage firms as a litigation attorney at Jenkens & Gilchrist.

Amy earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies and a Juris Doctor from the University of Texas at Austin. Amy is admitted to practice law in Texas and New York, and serves as the development chair of the Center for Women in Law. She is a notable speaker on topics related to fintech, customer experience, and diversity and inclusion.

Alex Stricker

Principal, Charles River Associates

Mr. Stricker has over 20 years of experience with fair lending testing, credit risk analysis, credit scoring model development and validation. He consults with financial institutions, large and small, on issues related to consumer credit underwriting, pricing, marketing, and servicing, with a specialization in fair lending, including evaluating credit scoring statistical analyses and automated underwriting systems for fair lending risk. While at CRA he has worked on class-action lawsuits, DOJ and CFPB investigations, and state and federal regulatory compliance. Prior to joining CRA, he was a senior vice president with a major financial institution where his areas of responsibility included fair lending statistical analysis, capital model development and validation. Previously, at Fannie Mae, Mr. Stricker managed the development and implementation of mortgage scoring methods in Desktop Underwriter; oversaw and coordinated all fair lending testing for Fannie Mae’s credit decision, pricing, and servicing statistical analyses; and implemented best-in-class model development and testing process to minimize fair lending disparate impact risk.

Ari Karen

Partner, Head of Litigation, Labor and Employment, Mitchell Sandler

Ari represents businesses and financial institutions in litigation matters, government investigations, and advises clients on regulatory compliance matters. He is widely praised for his business-friendly style of representation that combines aggressive advocacy with a sensitivity to practical business considerations. Ari’s approach looks at the impacts of legal strategy in real life scenarios, allowing his clients to remain both compliant and competitive.

His practice is diverse, covering subject matters including banking regulations, consumer protection regulations, Dodd-Frank financial reform laws, contractual disputes, employment and labor statutes, wage-hour class actions, employment discrimination and fair lending matters, whistleblower complaints, and non-competition claims. This combination of expertise in employment, litigation, and regulatory matters allows him to develop and implement multifaceted strategies drawing from diverse experiences that provide his clients an edge in litigation and competitive environments.

Ari litigates before state and federal trial and appellate courts nationwide. He has won precedent-setting decisions against the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, blocking the EEOC’s efforts to establish that employers could be held liable for violations of Title VII dating back to its passage in 1964. He has also counseled mortgage banks and financial services firms on their development of cutting-edge employment policies and procedures, as well as developing creative but compliant business strategies. These procedures have allowed institutions to solve legal and regulatory challenges without disrupting proven business models or undermining competitive advantages.

Melissa Koide

CEO & Director, FinRegLab

Prior to establishing FinRegLab, Melissa served as the U.S. Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consumer Policy where she developed and executed the Treasury Department’s consumer policies. Melissa helped to build the first government-offered preretirement savings product, the myRA, and she established the $5 million Innovation Fund to support research and strategies to improve consumers’ financial health and their access to safe and affordable financial products and services. Before joining the U.S. Treasury Department, Melissa was the Vice President of Policy at the Center for Financial Services Innovation.

David E. Palmer

Senior Supervisory Financial Analyst, Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation, Federal Reserve Board

David Palmer is a lead supervisory financial analyst in the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation at the Federal Reserve Board. He focuses on several primary topic areas, including banks’ model risk management practices, banks’ and supervisors’ stress testing activities, banks’ capital planning practices, validation of supervisory stress testing models, and banks’ use of new financial technologies. He engages in both policy-related projects as well as on-site examinations. David was a primary author of the Federal Reserve’s Supervisory Guidance on Model Risk Management (SR 11-7), issued in April 2011 jointly with the OCC (and later with FDIC), and continues to lead the implementation of that guidance within the Federal Reserve. More recently, David has been involved in evaluating supervised firms’ use of fintech, including artificial intelligence/machine learning.

He has a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree from Georgetown University.

Armen Meyer

Armen Meyer, Head of Public Policy and Regulatory Strategy, LendingClub

Armen Meyer is Head of Public Policy and Regulatory Strategy at LendingClub, the U.S.’s first fintech lender to acquire a national bank. He is also co-founder of the American Fintech Council (AFC), an association of 60+ fintech companies, neobanks and regulatory technology companies, currently serving as Chair of its Policy & Advocacy Committee. He is also on the board or advisory team of several early-stage fintechs and tech-nonprofits.
 
Before joining LendingClub, Armen was Managing Director for Regulatory Strategy at PwC where he advised banks and other financial services companies on regulatory and strategy matters in the wake of the global financial crisis. Previously, he served as Chief of Staff of New York’s bank regulator (now called New York Department of Financial Services) during the crisis and was advisor to the Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the federal government’s crisis spending. Earlier, Armen advised governors, congressmen, and candidates for federal office on financial, economic and political issues, and clerked in United States District Court.

Armen received his J.D. and M.P.A. from Harvard Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, focusing on business regulation and antitrust. He studied mathematics at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, receiving the Alumni Award given to the college’s top student.
 
In spare time, Armen enjoys foreign travel. He also volunteers at U.C. Berkeley’s SkyDeck start-up accelerator and serves as Selection Committee Member for Harvard Business School’s Alumni Angels of Northern California. 

John Murphy

Principal Software Engineer, RiskExec

John Murphy is Principal Software Engineer for RiskExec at Asurity. He is responsible for the overall system/solution architecture and technology advancement of the RiskExec platform. John has over 20 years of software engineering experience, and leads the development of RiskExec's geospatial tools such as the maps and geocoder.

Jesse Taylor

Director of Compliance Products and Services, RiskExec

Jesse Taylor rejoined the RiskExec team summer of 2022 as the Director of Compliance Products and Services after her previous tenure with the company from 2015 to 2019. She brings with her over a decade of experience in Compliance having served in Fair Lending leadership roles at both depository and non-depository institutions.

Jesse’s experience includes completion of ground-up build-outs of fair lending analytic programs at multiple institutions, including facilitation of full-scope model validation projects in partnership with Quantitative Analytics and Model Risk departments. She has executed and supervised completion of risk assessments and fair lending reviews for underwriting, pricing, steering, redlining, branch distribution, marketing and servicing as well as assisted in examination preparation and response to multiple regulatory entities.