Partner, King & Spalding
A partner in the firm’s Government Advocacy and Public Policy group, J.C. helps companies and trade associations navigate legal, political and regulatory issues commonly associated with doing business in Europe and the United States. He is recognized by clients for his strong, bipartisan relationships with Members of Congress, State Attorneys General, congressional staff and senior government officials across key regulatory and executive branch agencies. He is trusted for his ability to rapidly synthesize complex information and communicate its strategic implications to policymakers and senior institutional stakeholders as well as his candid evaluation of options and potential for success.
As former counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, J.C has developed a deep expertise in financial services, fintech, and emerging technology policy. He has a proven track record of influencing federal legislation, regulatory frameworks, and agency rulemaking impacting digital assets, banking, payments, and technology platforms. J.C. regularly interfaces with financial regulators on a wide array of policy and institution-specific issues, and as co-chair of the firm’s State Attorneys General practice, delivers results on high-impact legal work at the intersection of law, policy and regulation.
J.C. is skilled in developing and executing comprehensive advocacy strategies, shaping legislative language, and positioning clients to successfully navigate complex and evolving policy environments at the federal, state and international levels. As President of the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum, he has briefed policymakers throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Indo-Pacific. JC also advises international clients seeking to invest, expand, or operate in the United States.
President George W. Bush appointed J.C. to a six-year term as U.S. representative to the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Mayor Muriel Bowser also appointed J.C. to the District of Columbia; Board of Elections, in which capacity he also served on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Standards Board. He is currently chairman of the Board of Visitors of The Catholic University Columbus School of Law and President of the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum, where he is a regular speaker on cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and critical minerals.
Earlier in his career, J.C. established the Boggs Scholarship for Public Service at the University of Delaware in honor of his grandfather and namesake, former U.S. Congressman, Senator and Governor of Delaware, J. Caleb Boggs. He has also served on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, including Jobs for Delaware Graduates (Chairman); The Reserve Trust Company (Vice Chairman), Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship Network (Secretary), Republican National Lawyers Association (President), Kimball Union Academy (Chairman of the Committee on Trustees), and AAA Mid-Atlantic.
J.C. enjoys open-water swimming and is member of U.S. Masters Swimming and the historic Serpentine Swimming Club situated in London's Hyde Park. He has competed in swimming events across all 50 states, ten Canadian provinces and around the world.
U.S. Senate, Wyoming
Cynthia Lummis was sworn into the United States Senate on January 3, 2021, becoming the first woman to serve as United States Senator from the great State of Wyoming.
Born on a cattle ranch in Laramie County, Senator Lummis has spent her entire career fighting for Wyoming families, communities, businesses and values. From the halls of the Wyoming House to the halls of the U.S. House, her time in public service has always been focused on advocating for Wyoming’s future.
First elected to the U.S. House in 2008, Senator Lummis quickly earned her reputation as a no-nonsense conservative and principled policymaker. She was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group consisting of the most unflinching conservative Members of the House of Representatives. She fought throughout her tenure in Congress to rein in spending and reduce the federal deficit, working with the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and ultimately co-sponsoring several bipartisan budget proposals.
In the House of Representatives, Senator Lummis effectively elevated western issues, pushing through the first Interior and Environment (EPA) Appropriations bill to pass the House in seven years under her chairmanship. This marked a significant milestone for the Western Caucus and the rural communities across the West they represent. She also worked to keep public lands open to the public and available for multiple use. She successfully passed the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act in 2016, a bipartisan effort led by Cynthia to maintain over 157,000 miles of trails within our national forests.
Senator Lummis is a dedicated champion of Wyoming’s mineral and energy resources. In Washington, she fought off attacks from the environmental left while advocating for market opportunities both at home and abroad. She is the proud godmother of the ANSAC Wyoming, a commercial shipping vessel transporting trona from the U.S. to Southeast Asia and is the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Washington Coal Club.
Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Senator Lummis spent eight years as Wyoming State Treasurer and 14 years as a member of the Wyoming State House and Senate. She also worked as general counsel to Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer and Director of the Office of State Lands and Investments, as well as a law clerk at the Wyoming Supreme Court.
After departing U.S. House of Representatives in 2016, Senator Lummis operated her family’s cattle ranches, and the Sweetgrass development in Laramie County, with her brother and sister. She is a three-time graduate of the University of Wyoming in animal science, biology and law. She and her late-husband, Al Wiederspahn, have one daughter, Annaliese, son-in-law Will Cole and grandsons Gus and Al.
Executive Vice President & Co-Head of Regulatory Affairs, Bank Policy Institute
Paige Paridon is Executive Vice President & Co-Head of Regulatory Affairs for the Bank Policy Institute. Ms. Paridon is a member of BPI’s legal and regulatory affairs team and leads BPI’s consumer financial regulation advocacy alongside digital assets, payments and innovation regulatory policy. She also works on a number of other bank regulatory policy, strategy and advocacy issues.
Prior to joining BPI, Ms. Paridon served as Managing Director and Senior Associate General Counsel of The Clearing House. In that capacity, Ms. Paridon led the advocacy efforts of The Clearing House on a wide array of bank regulatory legal and policy issues impacting large financial institutions, including bank rating systems, national bank preemption, industry compensation limitations, brokered deposit restrictions, Community Reinvestment Act regulations and structural and activity limitations impacting banking organizations. Prior to joining The Clearing House, Ms. Paridon served as Counsel in the Legal Division of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the Banking Regulation and Policy Group. While at the Board, Ms. Paridon drafted regulations and developed policies in connection with the Board’s implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, including those related to the establishment of the Financial Stability Oversight Council; restrictions on transactions between banks and their affiliates; and prohibitions on management interlocks.
While at the Board, she received the Chairman’s Special Achievement Award for leading the interagency effort to implement the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s nonbank designation authority. Ms. Paridon received her J.D. magna cum laude from The Georgetown University Law Center where she was elected to membership in the Order of the Coif and holds a B.A. from Yale University.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Deputy General Counsel of Regulatory Strategy and Global Policy, Circle
Corey Then is the Deputy General Counsel of Regulatory Strategy and Global Policy at Circle, where he leads U.S. policy and global regulatory strategy. Among other things, he helped lead the company’s advocacy on stablecoin legislation, which ultimately culminated in the GENIUS Act. Prior to joining Circle, Corey served in a variety of legal and leadership roles, including in the White House as an attorney, Special Assistant to the President and leader of the Economics team in Presidential Personnel, and as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He has also served as the Chief Legal Officer of Moneta, an investment adviser, as a white-collar attorney at Williams & Connolly law firm in Washington, D.C., as an adjunct professor at Washington University Law School, and as a member of the CFTC Technology Advisory Committee. He is a graduate of Duke Law School.
Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania
David Zaring’s scholarship addresses administrative and regulatory law from an international perspective. Professor Zaring comes to the business school from the Washington & Lee University School of Law. At Washington & Lee, he was an assistant professor and Alumni Faculty Fellow from 2005 to 2007. He had previously served as Acting Assistant Professor in the Lawyering Program at New York University School of Law from 2002 to 2005, and as a visiting professor at Vanderbilt Law School in the fall of 2007. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Professor Zaring clerked for Chief Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and then for Judge Judith Rogers on the US. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division and as a special assistant to the General Counsel in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before entering the academy.
Executive Director, Consumers’ Research
Will Hild is the Executive Director of Consumers’ Research. Will has a decade of non-profit, legal and public policy experience. Prior to joining CR, Will served as the Deputy Director of the Regulatory Transparency Project. Before that, he worked at the Philanthropy Roundtable as the Director of External Affairs for the Culture of Freedom Initiative, and as the Chief Operating Officer of that Initiative when it grew to become a separate organization. He helped co-found the public interest law firm, Cause of Action, and served as the firm’s acting communications director for nearly a year.
Will received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida. He is licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Will resides in Bethesda, MD, with his wife Cheryl, a practicing OB/GYN, and their son Liam.
Partner, Fusion Law, PLLC
Paul is the founding partner of Fusion Law, PLLC. He has extensive experience with state, federal, and global regulators building coalitions and implementing policies to promote innovation in financial services. He is responsible for designing and implementing the first state (Arizona) and federal (CFPB) FinTech sandboxes in the United States. He also designed the CFPB no-action letter and trial disclosure policies. He helped found the first global regulatory innovation coalition (Global Financial Innovation Network) and led the founding of the first U.S. regulatory innovation coalition (American Consumer Financial Innovation Network). He served on the Financial Stability Oversight Council subcommittee on digital assets. He also has drafted state-level laws on blockchain and utility tokens.
Paul also has significant enforcement and litigation experience. He led many multi-state consumer protection enforcement matters as Civil Litigation Division Chief at the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
Prior to his government service, Paul practiced law in the areas of securities litigation and transactional work for approximately six years at two well-known law firms. He also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
TODD J. ZYWICKI is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and Research Fellow of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. During the Fall 2023 semester he served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the Bruce Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder. From 2020-2021 he was Chair of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. In 2021 he was inducted to the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers. He is also a Senior Fellow of the F.A. Hayek Program for the Advanced Study of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at George Mason University and a former Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute. From 2015-2017 he was Executive Director of the George Mason Law and Economics Center. He served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review from 2006-2017. From 2003-2004, Professor Zywicki served as the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. He has also taught at Vanderbilt University Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Boston College Law School, Mississippi College School of Law, and China University of Political Science and Law.
Professor Zywicki clerked for Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate at Alston & Bird in Atlanta, Georgia, where he practiced bankruptcy and commercial law. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia, where he was executive editor of the Virginia Tax Review and John M. Olin Scholar in Law and Economics. Professor Zywicki also received an M.A. in Economics from Clemson University and an A.B. cum Laude with high honors in his major from Dartmouth College.
Professor Zywicki is also a Lone Mountain Fellow of the Property and Environment Research Center, a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, and a former Senior Fellow of the Goldwater Institute. During the Fall 2008 Semester Professor Zywicki was the Searle Fellow of the George Mason University School of Law and was a 2008-09 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Arch W. Shaw National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. He has lectured and consulted with government officials around the world, including Iceland, Italy, Japan, and Guatemala. In 2006 Professor Zywicki served as a Member of the United States Department of Justice Study Group on “Identifying Fraud, Abuse and Errors in the United States Bankruptcy System.”
Professor Zywicki is the author of more than 130 articles in leading law reviews and peer-reviewed economics journals. He is one of the Top 10 most-cited law professors in the field of Commercial Law and one of the Top 25 law professors on Twitter as measured by engagement levels. He is one of the Top 50 Most Downloaded Law Authors at the Social Science Research Network. He has testified multiple times before Congress on issues of consumer bankruptcy law and consumer credit and is a frequent commentator on legal issues in the print and broadcast media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Nightline, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Neil Cavuto Show, Fox & Friends, Smerconish, Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream, Fox Business, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg News, BBC, The Diane Rehm Show, Lou Dobbs Show, Jerry Doyle Show, and The Laura Ingraham Show.
Professor Zywicki is former Chairman and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Humane Studies, Bill of Rights Institute, the Executive Committee for the Federalist Society's Financial Institutions and E-Commerce Practice Group, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment. He formerly served on the Governing Board and the Advisory Council for the Financial Services Research Program at George Washington University School of Business. He is currently the Chair of the Academic Advisory Council for the following organizations: The Bill of Rights Institute, the film “We the People in IMAX,” and the McCormick-Tribune Foundation “Freedom Museum” in Chicago, Illinois. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Ralston College and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Yorktown University. From 2005-2009 he served as an elected Alumni Trustee of the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Senior Counsel, Cleary Gottlieb
Michael H. Krimminger is Senior Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb where his practice focuses on U.S. and international banking and financial institutions.
In particular, he advises on the challenges and opportunities stemming from statutory and regulatory reforms in the United States and internationally. He recently served as lead counsel to itBit Trust Company, a commercial Bitcoin exchange, in becoming the first U.S.-chartered and regulated virtual currency exchange.
Michael joined Cleary Gottlieb in 2012 as partner after serving for more than two decades in numerous leadership positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), including most recently as its general counsel. As general counsel, he served as the principal legal and policy advisor to the chairman and board of directors regarding the legislative development and later implementation of regulatory and policy components of the Dodd-Frank Act, including its SIFI resolution, living wills, capital markets and capital, and structured finance requirements. Michael played a major role in the FDIC and U.S. efforts to enhance resolution planning and cross-border cooperation among G-20 countries. He was also responsible for all legal policy, litigation, corporate issues and operations for the 730 attorney and non-attorney members of the Legal Division.
Prior to serving as general counsel, Michael served as Special Advisor for Policy to the Chairman and deputy to the chairman for policy. He played a central role in the FDIC’s response to the financial crisis and the development of Dodd-Frank Act provisions addressing capital markets, capital requirements, creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, living wills, enhanced prudential supervision, risk retention, resolution authority, and other provisions of the act.
Michael’s international experience includes serving as the co-chair of the Basel Committee’s Cross Border Resolutions Group and representing the FDIC on the Financial Stability Board’s Resolution Steering Group and other bodies. He has played a central role in bilateral and multilateral discussions with regulators around the world on legal reform, resolution planning, capital and liquidity requirements, and strategies for implementation of financial market reforms for derivatives and other financial market contracts.
Michael became senior counsel in 2020.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Conference of State Bank Supervisors
John Ryan is the president and chief executive officer of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, the national organization of financial regulators from all 50 states and U.S. territories. Since becoming president and CEO in 2011, Mr. Ryan has provided strategic leadership in advancing the system of state financial supervision.
Mr. Ryan previously served as CSBS’s Executive Vice President, and Assistant Vice President of Legislative Affairs. Mr. Ryan also led the financial services consulting practice at a public affairs firm, and worked on the U.S. House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs committee. He has a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Senior Counsel, Corporate Engagement Team, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brian Knight serves as senior counsel on the Corporate Engagement Team. His work focuses on issues of financial access, debanking, and preventing the power of the private sector from being weaponized against people of faith by both public and private actors.
Prior to joining ADF, Knight spent almost nine years at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, as both a senior research fellow and as a program director. In addition to managing a team of scholars, Knight’s research focused on financial regulation and the politicization of financial services. His research helped inform legislation and regulation at the federal and state level. He was also the lead author for two amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Rifle Association v. Vullo.
Before joining Mercatus, Knight worked at the Milken Institute, where he focused on financial technology. He was also an entrepreneur, co-founding a firm focused on compliance for crowdfunding.
Knight earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Principal, Ely & Company, Inc.
Bert Ely has specialized in deposit insurance and banking structure issues since 1981. In 1986, he became an early predictor of the S&L crisis and a taxpayer bailout of the FSLIC. In 1991, he was the first person to correctly predict the non-crisis in commercial banking; in 1992, he predicted an eventual taxpayer bailout of the Japanese banking system.
Bert continuously monitors conditions in the banking and S&L industries, monetary policy, and the growing federalization of credit risk. He has helped to draft legislation to enact the cross-guarantee concept for privatizing banking regulation and its related deposit insurance and systemic risks. He has testified on numerous occasions before congressional committees on banking issues and he often speaks on these matters to bankers and others.
Bert first established his consulting practice in 1972. Before that, he was the chief financial officer of a public company, a consultant with Touche, Ross & Company, and an auditor with Ernst & Ernst. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and his Bachelor's degree in economics in 1964 from Case Western Reserve University.
Managing Director, Banking Supervision and Regulation Group, Patomak Global Partners
Brian Johnson is Managing Director in the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group at Patomak Global Partners.
In this role, Mr. Johnson spearheads projects related to the regulation of consumer financial products under Keith Noreika, Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Banking Supervision and Regulation Group and former acting Comptroller of the Currency.
Prior to joining Patomak, Mr. Johnson was a partner in Alston & Bird LLP’s financial services and products group. There, he advised financial institutions on consumer finance regulatory issues relating to product compliance, examination, enforcement investigations, and compliance management systems, and on strategic engagement with independent federal regulatory agencies and with Congress.
Mr. Johnson previously served as Deputy Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he oversaw the agency’s rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement activities. He conceived and led the creation of high-profile agency initiatives, including the Office of Innovation, Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, policy symposia series, and Start Small, Save Up emergency savings program. He also served as the CFPB representative to the Financial Stability Oversight Council Deputies’ Committee and advised on interagency matters involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.
Mr. Johnson held various positions on Capitol Hill, including policy director and chief financial institutions counsel on the House Committee on Financial Services, where his portfolio covered consumer protection and credit, mortgage origination, credit reporting, banking, and data security. His efforts on the committee involved drafting legislation to provide regulatory relief to bank, credit union, and nondepository financial institutions, as well as conducting oversight of the activities of the CFPB, Financial Stability Oversight Council, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Financial Research, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve System, and National Credit Union Administration.
Mr. Johnson received his juris doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law and his bachelor’s in economics from the University of Virginia.
Senior Counsel, Cleary Gottlieb
Michael H. Krimminger is Senior Counsel at Cleary Gottlieb where his practice focuses on U.S. and international banking and financial institutions.
In particular, he advises on the challenges and opportunities stemming from statutory and regulatory reforms in the United States and internationally. He recently served as lead counsel to itBit Trust Company, a commercial Bitcoin exchange, in becoming the first U.S.-chartered and regulated virtual currency exchange.
Michael joined Cleary Gottlieb in 2012 as partner after serving for more than two decades in numerous leadership positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), including most recently as its general counsel. As general counsel, he served as the principal legal and policy advisor to the chairman and board of directors regarding the legislative development and later implementation of regulatory and policy components of the Dodd-Frank Act, including its SIFI resolution, living wills, capital markets and capital, and structured finance requirements. Michael played a major role in the FDIC and U.S. efforts to enhance resolution planning and cross-border cooperation among G-20 countries. He was also responsible for all legal policy, litigation, corporate issues and operations for the 730 attorney and non-attorney members of the Legal Division.
Prior to serving as general counsel, Michael served as Special Advisor for Policy to the Chairman and deputy to the chairman for policy. He played a central role in the FDIC’s response to the financial crisis and the development of Dodd-Frank Act provisions addressing capital markets, capital requirements, creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, living wills, enhanced prudential supervision, risk retention, resolution authority, and other provisions of the act.
Michael’s international experience includes serving as the co-chair of the Basel Committee’s Cross Border Resolutions Group and representing the FDIC on the Financial Stability Board’s Resolution Steering Group and other bodies. He has played a central role in bilateral and multilateral discussions with regulators around the world on legal reform, resolution planning, capital and liquidity requirements, and strategies for implementation of financial market reforms for derivatives and other financial market contracts.
Michael became senior counsel in 2020.
Executive Director, The Financial Technology and Cybersecurity Center
Thomas P. Vartanian is the Executive Director of the Financial Technology & Cybersecurity Center, an author, financial services advisor, expert witness, and board mentor. He is the former Executive Director of the Program on Financial Regulation & Technology at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was also a Professor of Law. Between 1983 and 2018, he chaired the Financial Institution’s practices at two international law firms, Dechert LLP and Fried Frank LLP, through four financial crises. Both as a regulator and private practitioner, he has represented parties in a majority of the 50 largest financial institution failures in American history.
Mr. Vartanian served in the Reagan Administration during the S&L crisis as General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and the FSLIC. Prior to that, he served in the Carter Administration in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as Special Assistant to the Chief Counsel. Since departing government service, he has advised many subsequent presidential administrations on financial institution issues.
Mr. Vartanian is a futurist and expert in financial technology who has been described by clients in Chambers as “one of the best financial services lawyers in America.” Mr. Vartanian was Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Cyberspace Law Committee between 1998 and 2002, where he chaired an international task force of lawyers from twenty countries which released a seminal report in London in 2000 on the novel issues created by doing business in Cyberspace. He is currently a member of the American Association of Bank Directors’ Task Force on Bank Director Personal Liability Mitigation.
Mr. Vartanian has authored more than four hundred articles and eight books, including his new book, 200 Years of American Financial Panics: Crashes, Recessions, Depressions, and the Technology That Will Change It All chronicling the country’s tumultuous financial history and the impact that technology will have on its future.
He is a frequent lecturer and media commentator on the financial services industry, having appeared on Bloomberg TV, CNN, Fox News, Newsmax, PBS and various local and national radio shows. He has also taught financial services and digital commerce law at Georgetown Law School, George Washington Law School, and Boston University School of Law, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School.
In 2008, Mr. Vartanian was named “Washingtonian of the Year” based on his use of music and sports to raise money for charities in the D.C. metropolitan area. As a musician, he appeared in the first production in the United States in 1970 of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. His classic rock band, The Johnny Esquire Band, has helped raise approximately $5,000,000 for charities in the Washington D.C. area over the last twenty-five years. Mr. Vartanian also founded and plays for the Washington All Stars, a senior baseball team that has raised more than $500,000 for Special Olympics.
His next book, The Unhackable Internet, will be published in early 2023.
Director of Research, Coin Center
Peter is Director of Research at Coin Center, the leading non-profit research and advocacy group focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency technologies such as Bitcoin. He is a graduate of NYU Law, as well as a self-taught designer and coder.
He drafts the Center’s public regulatory comments, and helps shape its research agenda. He has testified before Congress, briefed staff and members of the EU parliament and educated policymakers and regulatory staff around the world on the subject of cryptocurrency regulation and decentralized computing systems. Previously, he was a Google Policy Fellow and collaborated with various digital rights organizations on projects related to privacy, surveillance, and digital copyright law.
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Senior Counsel, Corporate Engagement Team, Alliance Defending Freedom
Brian Knight serves as senior counsel on the Corporate Engagement Team. His work focuses on issues of financial access, debanking, and preventing the power of the private sector from being weaponized against people of faith by both public and private actors.
Prior to joining ADF, Knight spent almost nine years at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, as both a senior research fellow and as a program director. In addition to managing a team of scholars, Knight’s research focused on financial regulation and the politicization of financial services. His research helped inform legislation and regulation at the federal and state level. He was also the lead author for two amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Rifle Association v. Vullo.
Before joining Mercatus, Knight worked at the Milken Institute, where he focused on financial technology. He was also an entrepreneur, co-founding a firm focused on compliance for crowdfunding.
Knight earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Conference of State Bank Supervisors
John Ryan is the president and chief executive officer of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, the national organization of financial regulators from all 50 states and U.S. territories. Since becoming president and CEO in 2011, Mr. Ryan has provided strategic leadership in advancing the system of state financial supervision.
Mr. Ryan previously served as CSBS’s Executive Vice President, and Assistant Vice President of Legislative Affairs. Mr. Ryan also led the financial services consulting practice at a public affairs firm, and worked on the U.S. House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs committee. He has a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
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