The new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is wasting no time in changing things at the agency, announcing appointments to four senior management positions.
Rohit Chopra, who was recently confirmed by the Senate to serve as the agency’s director, announced Tuesday appointments for deputy director; associate director for consumer education & external affairs; chief of staff; and chief technologist. The appointees include two who helped create the bureau and two who served on the CFPB staff during the Obama administration.
Long-time bureau official Zixta Q. Martinez will serve as deputy director, the agency said. In that role she will oversee the bureau’s Operations Division.
Martinez joined the bureau in 2011 to help lead the implementation team, which also included Chopra, and has since served as senior advisor for supervision, enforcement and fair lending; associate director for external affairs, and assistant director for the Office of Community Affairs. Previously, she was senior director of industry and state relations at Freddie Mac; director at the National Fair Housing Alliance; legislative staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc.; housing policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza, and associate staffer at the Housing and Community Development Subcommittee of the Banking Finance & Urban Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Martinez is a graduate of Yale College, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Miami School of Law.
Karen Andre will serve as associate director for consumer education & external affairs. Prior to joining the CFPB, Andre served in a number of government, campaign, and private sector roles. Most recently, she served as special assistant to the president for economic agency personnel within the Executive Office of the President. She worked on President Biden’s 2020 campaign team, including as a senior advisor for national faith outreach.
Following Biden’s election, she joined the presidential transition team as the COVID Engagement Team lead. She also previously served as White House liaison for the Department of Housing & Urban Development. Andre received her B.A. from Florida International University and her law degree from the University of Miami School of Law.
Jan Singelmann returns to the CFPB as chief of staff. He previously served as senior litigation counsel in the CFPB’s Office of Enforcement. Most recently, he served as counsel for Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, where his work covered consumer finance and data privacy issues.
Singelmann received his B.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Erie Meyer is returning to the CFPB to serve as chief technologist. She also served on the implementation team that launched the CFPB, and became a founding team member of the Bureau’s Office of Technology & Innovation. Most recently, Meyer served at the Federal Trade Commission as senior advisor for policy planning to Chairwoman Lina Khan and as chief technologist, and as then-Commissioner Chopra’s technology advisor.
Before serving at the FTC, she launched the U.S. Digital Service in the White House in 2014 during the Obama administration. Meyer has also served as senior director for Code for America and senior advisor to the White House’s Chief Technology Officer.
She is a co-founder of Tech Ladymafia, and a recipient of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Joan Shorenstein Fellowship, during which she researched the intersection of open data, journalism, and civic life. Meyer is a contributor to open source software and received her B.A. in journalism from American University.
