The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Tuesday the hiring of several new staff for senior leadership positions within the agency, including a Chief of Staff, despite not yet having a director.
“The CFPB needs highly-qualified staff, from those who are skilled in handling individual consumer complaints to experts in legislative and intergovernmental affairs to lawyers who are able to craft clear and precise rules,” said Raj Date, Special Advisor to the Secretary of Treasury on the CFPB, in a statement. “Together with the CFPB staff already on board, these new hires will help us ensure that consumers have the information they need to make the financial choices that are best for them.”
Meredith Fuchs, the new Chief of Staff, previously served as the bureau’s Principal Deputy General Counsel after coming to the CFPB from the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served as Chief Investigative Counsel of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Fuchs has also previously served as vice president and general counsel of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, and is a former litigation partner at Wiley Rein LLP in addition to serving as an officer on the D.C. Bar Board of Governors. She is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Other new hires include Stephen J. Agostini, now Chief Financial Officer; Chris Willey, now Chief Information Officer; Lisa Konwinski, now Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs; Nicholas Rathod, now Assistant Director for Intergovernmental and International Affairs; Sartaj Alag, now Assistant Director for Consumer Response; Rohit Chopra, now Private Education Loan Ombudsman; and Roberto J. Gonzalez, taking over Fuch’s former position as Principal Deputy General Counsel.
Last month, the CFPB announced the appointment of Hubert “Skip” Humphrey to lead the bureau’s new Office of Older Americans. About a week previously, Republican senators blocked a nomination to install Richard Cordray as the bureau’s director, stating their intentions to continue to do so until the CFPB’s authority structure is changed.
Written by Alyssa Gerace
