Speaker biographies
Wayne A. Abernathy joined the American Bankers Association (ABA) in February 2005 in the newly created position of executive director for financial institutions policy and regulatory affairs. He oversees the ABA groups that deal with policy development, regulatory issues, bank general counsels, economics, and tax and accounting. Before joining the ABA, Mr. Abernathy served for two years as assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush. He received the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. He also served at the Senate Banking Committee from 1981 to 2003 in various capacities, including staff director under Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas), staff director of the Subcommittee on Securities, Republican economist, and economist for the Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy. He worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm from 1987 to 1989.
Scott G. Alvarez has been the general counsel of the Federal Reserve Board since 2004. Mr. Alvarez joined the board in 1981 as a staff attorney and became a senior attorney in 1985. In 1989, he was appointed to the board’s official staff as assistant general counsel and was named associate general counsel in 1991. During his tenure, he has worked with board members and senior system staff to develop policies and legal positions on domestic banking issues and has been responsible for legal analysis relating to bank acquisitions and mergers.
Richard Scott Carnell is an associate professor of law at Fordham Law School, where he specializes in the law of financial institutions. He has served as assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department and as senior counsel of the Senate Banking Committee.
Richard Hillman has served thirty-one years with the Government Accountability Office and is currently the managing director of the Financial Markets and Community Investment Team. This team helps Congress improve the effectiveness of regulatory oversight in financial and housing markets and the management of community development programs. Before becoming managing director, Mr. Hillman served eight years as director of the team. In this capacity, he was responsible for directing engagements on cross-cutting financial services issues within the banking, securities, and insurance industries. Over the past decade, he has produced scores of reports and led a wide variety of efforts assessing the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of federal and state regulation of the financial services sector.
Marc E. Lackritz is president and CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the organization formed from the 2006 merger of the Securities Industry Association and the Bond Market Association. Mr. Lackritz served as president of the Securities Industry Association from 1992 until the merger. From 1987 to 1990, he was the executive vice president and head of the Washington office of the Public Securities Association, which later became the Bond Market Association. He was staff director and chief counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance, deputy chief counsel for the Senate Budget Committee, and assistant counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee. He also was a partner of the former Washington-based law firm Wald, Harkrader and Ross, where he specialized in litigation, lobbying, trade regulation and international arbitration. Mr. Lackritz was a presidential delegate to the National Summit on Retirement Savings and a presidential appointee to the White House Conference on Social Security. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions and has spoken and written extensively on issues facing the financial services sectors.
Robert E. Litan is the vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, where he engages in entrepreneurship research. Mr. Litan is also a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, where he researches regulation, financial institutions, telecommunications, and general economic policy. Mr. Litan is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than thirty books and two hundred articles on a broad range of public policy issues. He has been a lecturer in banking law at the Yale Law School and has testified as an expert witness in a variety of legal and regulatory proceedings involving domestic banking and antitrust issues and international trade matters. He has also consulted for private sector firms, the Treasury Department, and the Department of Justice. He is the author or coauthor of numerous reports, among them studies for the Treasury Department, the President’s Commission to Study Capital Budgeting, and the National Academy of Sciences Committees. Mr. Litan has served in several capacities in the federal government: associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, the deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, the regulatory and legal staff specialist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a member of the Commission on the Causes of the Savings and Loan Crisis.
Michael J. Ryan Jr. is the senior vice president and executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, which was established in March 2007 to promote investor protection, capital formation, and U.S. capital market leadership. He is also vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Between February 2006 and March 2007, Mr. Ryan was executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Commission on the Regulation of U.S. Capital Markets in the 21st Century, a bipartisan, independent commission charged with considering framework for modernizing the U.S. capital markets and studying the impact of federal and state regulations on U.S. capital markets, investors, and the economy. Previously, Mr. Ryan was executive vice president, general counsel, and a member of the Office of the Chairman of the American Stock Exchange. Between April 1997 and November 1998, he served as counsel to the chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. Before that, he spent four years at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the divisions of market regulation and corporation finance. From 1985 to 1988, Mr. Ryan was a senior accountant with Price, Waterhouse & Co. In addition, he has served on the boards of the Options Clearing Corporation and the Children’s Neurobiological Solutions Foundation.
Robert K. Steel has been the under secretary of the treasury for domestic finance since October 2006. He serves as the principal adviser to the secretary on matters of domestic finance and leads the department’s activities with respect to the domestic financial system, fiscal policy and operations, governmental assets and liabilities, and related economic and financial matters. He retired from Goldman Sachs as a vice chairman of the firm in February of 2004. Mr. Steel joined Goldman Sachs in 1976 and served in the Chicago office until his transfer to London in 1986.In London, he founded the Equity Capital Markets Group for Europe and was extensively involved in privatization and capital-raising efforts for European corporations and governments. He later assumed the position as head of equities for Europe. In 1994, he relocated to New York and served as head of the equities division from 1998 to 2001, until his appointment as a vice chairman. Mr. Steel became a partner in 1988 and joined the Management Committee in 1999. Upon his retirement from Goldman Sachs, he assumed the position of advisory director for the firm and then senior director in December 2004. From February 2004 to September 2006, Mr. Steel served as a senior fellow at the Center for Business and Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
James C. Sivon is a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Barnett Sivon & Natter, P.C. He specializes in representing financial institutions before Congress and federal regulatory agencies. From 1983 to 1985, he was a senior vice president and general counsel at the Association of Bank Holding Companies, and he served as the staff director for the Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee from 1980 to 1983. Mr. Sivon is a frequent speaker on the regulation of financial services firms and is the author of various publications, including The New CRA, Insurance Activities: A Legal Guide for Banks, and FIRREA: Implementation and Compliance (which he coauthored). He is also a member of the Executive Council of the Federal Bar Association’s Banking Law Committee and the Exchequer Club.
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at AEI, where he codirects the Institute’s program on financial market deregulation. He previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, D.C., and New York. From June 1981 to January 1985, Mr. Wallison was general counsel of the Treasury Department, where he had a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the Treasury Department’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. During 1986 and 1987, Mr. Wallison was White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Between 1972 and 1976, Mr. Wallison served first as special assistant to Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, as counsel to Mr. Rockefeller when he was vice president of the United States.
Greg Wilson is the president of Gregory P. Wilson Consulting, a financial services policy and regulatory consulting firm, and he has worked in more than twenty countries in the past ten years on a broad array of financial center and financial sector competitiveness issues. He is a codirector of the Financial Services Roundtable’s Commission on Enhancing Competitiveness. Mr. Wilson was previously a principal with McKinsey & Company’s financial services practice. He has also been deputy assistant secretary for financial institutions policy at the Treasury Department and Republican staff director of the House Financial Services Committee.
