Read more at the Washington CU Daily
President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday appointed longtime credit union executive Bill Bynum and former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Deputy Director Leandra English to his CFPB agency review team.
The teams are designed to help ease the transition from Trump Administration agencies to Biden Administration agencies. The teams also include one that will examine the Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities Regulators.
English is the team lead for the CFPB team. She served as deputy director of the CFPB under former Director Richard Cordray. Her appointment is likely a sign that Biden intends to re-invigorate the CFPB, which has tilted toward a pro-business position under President Trump.
English may best be remembered for her appointment as acting director of the agency by Cordray just before he resigned to run for Ohio governor. Trump instead installed Mick Mulvaney as acting director, resulting in a brief legal skirmish in federal court. English now serves as an advisor with the New York Department of Financial Services.
Bynum is chief executive officer of the Hope Credit Union Enterprise Corp. in Jackson, Miss. The corporation includes the Hope Credit Union, Hope Enterprise Corp., and the Hope Policy Institute. The corporation states on its website that “it provides financial services; aggregates resources; and engages in advocacy to mitigate the extent to which factors such as race, gender, birthplace and wealth limit one’s ability to prosper.”
Bynum began his professional career by helping establish Self-Help, which includes the Self-Help Credit Union, the Self-Help Ventures Fund, and the Center for Responsible Lending. The center has been extremely critical of the management of the CFPB under Trump.
Among his many board memberships, Bynum serves on the boards of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Aspen Institute. He previously chaired the Treasury Department’s Community Development Advisory Board and the CFPB Consumer Advisory Board.
In addition to Bynum and English, the following are the members of the Biden CFPB transition team and their most recent employment:
- Manny Alvarez, California Department of Financial Protection, and Innovation
- David Mayorga, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia
- Josh Nassar, the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers
- Brian Shearer, Justice Catalyst Law
- Diane Thompson, self-employed
- Ashwin Vasan, Sophant Consulting
Biden also appointed members of his Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities transition team. Its members and their most recent employer are:
- Gary Gensler, team leader, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
- Reena Aggarwal, Georgetown University
- Mehrsa Baradaran, Irvine Law School, University of California
- Lisa Cook, Michigan State University
- Amanda Fischer, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- Andy Green, Center for American Progress
- Campbell Haynes, Virginia Coordinated Campaign
- Simon Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Dennis Kelleher, Better Markets
- Satyam Khanna, New York University School of Law
- Renaye Manley, Service Employees International Union
- Lev Menand, Columbia University
- Damon Silvers, AFL-CIO
