The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced last week the addition of five new hires to its executive team, following up on previous leadership hires made earlier this year to further bolster its ranks.
The Bureau later announced the appointment of new members to the Consumer Advisory Board (CAB), Community Bank Advisory Council (CBAC), Credit Union Advisory Council (CUAC), and Academic Research Council (ARC), all of which provide expert counsel to the Bureau on a range of financial topics.
The hires to the executive team include Desmond Brown as the deputy associate director for the consumer education and engagement division; Jason Brown as assistant director for research; Karla Carnemark as the deputy chief of staff; Ren Essene as chief data officer; and Bryan A. Schneider as associate director in the supervision, enforcement and fair lending division.
Only two of the new hires, Desmond Brown and Ren Essene, come from previous experience and positions within the CFPB. Jason Brown comes to the Bureau from the Department of the Treasury, and Bryan A. Schneider previously served in state government as the Secretary of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in the cabinet of former Governor Bruce Rauner.
Kayla Carnemark’s arrival fills a vacancy in the CFPB’s deputy chief of staff position left by Kate Fulton, who became the Bureau’s Chief Operating Officer in the last executive hiring push made by the Bureau this past May. She previously worked with senior-level government executives from the Departments of Defense, Commerce and Transportation, respectively. Additionally, Carnemark also served on the staff of former Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) in Washington, D.C.
In terms of the advisory committees, the naming of new members for each of them follows new “enhancements” announced by the Bureau this past March, which are being implemented with the start of the 2020 fiscal year. These enhancements include the increase in frequency of in-person meetings to three times per year, along with the committees expansion of their collective focus to broader matters of policy.
The upcoming fiscal 2020 makeup for the CAB has 12 total members led by incoming chair Brent Neiser, the senior director for the National Endowment for Financial Education in Denver, Colo. The CBAC has 8 members led by chair Aubrey Hulings, VP and operations manager at the Farmers National Bank of Emlenton in Emlenton, Pa.
The CUAC also has 8 members including chair Sean Cahill, president and CEO of TrueSky Credit Union in Oklahoma City, Okla., while the ARC has 7 members led by chair Michael Baye, Bert Elwert professor of business economics at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.
In terms of recent Bureau interactions with the reverse mortgage industry, the CFPB sent a notice to reverse mortgage borrowers affected by recent natural disasters, offering guidance on methods they can use to avoid a reverse mortgage foreclosure if borrowers’ property has been damaged. The Bureau also released a supervisory highlights report detailing observations made by Bureau examiners concerning inaccurate information related to reverse mortgage annual percentage rates (APRs).
Read the press release detailing the Bureau’s new executive team hires and the full advisory committees roster at the CFPB Newsroom website.
