Short bio on likely newly appointed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief

[Theo Haffey]

Raj Date was Chairman and Executive Director of the Cambridge Winter Center from its founding through September, 2010. He left Cambridge Winter to join the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Today, he serves as the Associate Director for Research, Markets & Regulations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Mr. Date has had a long and varied career in and around U.S. financial institutions -- as a strategy consultant, as a bank executive, and on Wall Street. Until joining Cambridge Winter in 2009, he was a Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Group at Deutsche Bank Securities, where he led the firm’s investment banking coverage for the largest U.S.-based banks and thrifts. His client dialogue focused on calibrating credit deterioration, evaluating capital-raising alternatives, and generating liquidity.

Before that, Mr. Date was Senior Vice President for Corporate Strategy and Development at Capital One Financial, where he led M&A development efforts across the U.S. banking and specialty finance markets. He began his business career in the financial institutions practice of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He has also served as an attorney, in both private and government practice.

Mr. Date’s research with Cambridge Winter focused principally on consumer and small business finance, community banking, and “shadow banks” like investment banks, hedge funds, and finance companies. References to his work appear frequently in both the general and financial media -- in publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post -- and he has served as an on-air contributor for CNN, CNBC, Fox Business News, and NPR, among others. He has also testified before the Senate Banking Committee.

Before joining Treasury, Mr. Date served on the Boards of Directors of Prosper Marketplace, Inc., the leading peer-to-peer lending platform; Demos, a New York-based think tank; and the South Asian American Forum.

He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (highest honors), and the Harvard Law School (magna cum laude). He lives in New York City with his wife, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and their twin son and daughter.

http://cambridgewinter.org/Cambridge_Winter/Raj_Date.html

[lonestarnot]

1. Fucking A.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. Has this appointment been formally announced?

[grasswire]

4. Capital One?

The predatory credit card lender?

Oh great.

[tekisui]

5. I miss Elizabeth Warren.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Elizabeth Warren hired Date as an adviser for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

AlterNet has this on the guy and some recommendations from consumer groups..


“Raj Date was a true ally of consumer protection groups in our fight for meaningful financial regulatory reform,” says Cora Ganzglass, legislative director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “As someone who has worked within the financial service arena (which he always fully disclosed) Raj could aptly describe how the system was broken and why it needed to be fixed.”



http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/27/raj-date-is-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-consumers-since-elizabeth-warren/


I knew nothing about this guy until right now
and didn't know he was in contention so I did a search
I think we need to look into it more.

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Interesting.

Thanks for the research. I think I will dig up some more on this gent tonight. This could be very promising, but the fact that she chose to hire him speaks volumes as far as I am concerned.

[PoliticAverse]

6. "Served on the Boards of Directors of Prosper Marketplace, Inc."

On November 24, 2008, the SEC found Prosper.com to be in violation of the Securities Act of 1933. As a result of these findings, the SEC imposed a cease and desist order on Prosper.<9> http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2008/33-8984.pdf

(From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_Marketplace )

[tammywammy]

8. Here's something that I found last night

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-08/obama-eyes-ex-banker-for-consumer-chief.html

Date, 40, earned an engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Harvard University. He was senior vice president for corporate strategy and development at Capital One and a managing director in the financial institutions group at Deutsche Bank. During the debate over Dodd-Frank, Date headed the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, a research group he founded.

-snip-

When she appointed Date to the unit that will draft rules for credit cards, mortgages, student loans and payday lenders, Warren said that he and his team would “bring a wealth of experience in the financial services industry, government, non- profits, community banking and academia that will help us build a world-class” research and regulations unit.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Date, who joined Capital One in 2001, recalled his tenure there during the housing bubble. He said he told his colleagues that schemes to make quick money off customers would have an impact on the bank’s reputation and balance sheet.

[Scurrilous]

9. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[rucky]

11. So where's his consumer protection experience?