Co-founder, The Financial Integrity Network
Chip Poncy is a co-founder of the Financial Integrity Network (FIN), a strategic and technical advisory company focused on assisting key financial and jurisdictional stakeholders in combating and protecting against the full spectrum of illicit finance. Launched in 2014, FIN advises jurisdictional authorities, financial institutions, and vulnerable sectors, industries, and organizations in developing and implementing counter-illicit finance policies, requirements and best practices.
Prior to launching FIN, Mr. Poncy assisted one of the world’s largest banks in developing and implementing its enterprise-wide financial crimes compliance program in Latin America, including by serving in Mexico City as the bank’s interim Head of Financial Crimes Compliance for Mexico and the Latin American region.
From 2002-2013, Mr. Poncy served as the inaugural Director of the Office of Strategic Policy for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (OSP) and a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As the Director of OSP from 2005-2013, Mr. Poncy led an office of strategic policy advisors in creating policies and initiatives to combat the full spectrum of illicit finance, including money laundering, terrorist financing, WMD proliferation financing, and kleptocracy flows. As a Senior Advisor from 2002- 2005, Mr. Poncy assisted Treasury leadership in developing the U.S. Government’s post-9/11 strategy to combat terrorist financing. He also assisted senior leadership in creating and developing the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the post-9/11 Government reorganization.
Mr. Poncy led the U.S. delegation to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) from 2010-2013, co-chaired the policy working group of the FATF from 2007-2013, and managed U.S. participation on various G7, G8 and G20 illicit finance experts groups from 2008-2013. Key accomplishments in these roles included assisting in the revision and adoption of the FATF’s global standards and assessment processes for evaluating jurisdictions under the FATF global network, and facilitating the integration of counter-illicit finance into the broader global financial reform agenda since 2008.
Mr. Poncy began his career as an associate in the New York offices of the law firm White & Case and has served as general counsel to biotechnology and internet radio companies. He has co-pioneered a graduate course on national security and the international financial system as an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Mr. Poncy graduated with honors from Harvard University (Bachelor of Arts in Government) and The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Masters of Arts in International Relations) and holds a Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Jim Harper is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on privacy issues, and select legal and constitutional law issues.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Harper has served as counsel for the Subcommittee on Commercial, and Administrative Law of the US House Committee on the Judiciary and as counsel for the Senate Committee on Government Affairs. More recently, he worked at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, where he wrote on the intersection of business, technology, and public policy, including privacy, surveillance, data security, telecommunications, and cryptocurrencies. He also served as global policy counsel for the Bitcoin Foundation. Mr. Harper was a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. Early in his post-Hill career, he represented companies such as PayPal and Verisign before Congress.
Mr. Harper is the co-editor of “Terrorizing Ourselves: Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Is Failing and How to Fix It” (Cato Institute, 2010) and the author of “Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood” (Cato Institute, 2006). He has written several amicus briefs in Fourth Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and has published scholarly articles in a variety of law journals. In the popular press, Mr. Harper has been published in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications.
Mr. Harper has a law degree from the U.C. Hastings College of the Law, where he was editor-in-chief of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Bitcoin: Commerce, Government and Security - Podcast
Chip Poncy, Vincent Vitkowsky, Jim Harper
International & National Security Law Practice Group Podcast
Bitcoin is the most prominent cryptographic digital currency emerging as a privately-created medium of exchange....