Ellen Seidman

Ellen Seidman is the former Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision. She chairs the Board of Directors of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a nonprofit that helps financial services providers responsibly and sustainably serve underbanked consumers, and serves on the Boards of three Community Development Financial Institutions: City First Bank of DC, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. and the Low Income Investment Fund. Seidman was a Senior Research Fellow in the Asset Building Program of the New America Foundation, and she held senior positions at ShoreBank Advisory Services and ShoreBank Corporation. Seidman served as Senior Counsel to the Democratic staff of the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives during 2002. From 1997 to 2001, while Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, she was also a Director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Chairman of the Board of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. From 1993 to 1997, Seidman served as Special Assistant for Economic Policy to President Clinton. She has also held senior positions at Fannie Mae, the United States Treasury Department, and the United States Department of Transportation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and an MBA in finance and investments from George Washington University.

As a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Seidman authored “Integration and Innovation in a Time of Stress: Doing the Best for People and Place,” which was published in Investing in What Works for America’s Communities: Essays on People, Place, and Purpose. She also participated in a panel discussion at the 2012 National Interagency Community Reinvestment Conference and advised the Center for Community Development Investments in its transition to a new business model.