Dennis Kelleher is Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, a Washington DC-based nonprofit established to make finance and government serve society, fight injustice and inequality, and promote economic security, opportunity, and prosperity for all Americans. At Better Markets, Mr. Kelleher’s leadership requires operating in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches simultaneously while developing and driving communications strategies to support those policy efforts. Since founding Better Markets in 2010, he has been quoted more than 3,000 times, done more than 150 live TV appearances, participated in more than 300 rulemakings and 25 legal cases, and testified more than 10 times.

Mr. Kelleher served as a member of the Biden-Harris Transition team and, from September 2020 through January 2021, was on the Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities Agency Review Team and worked with the Treasury Department and Department of Justice teams.  In May 2024, Washingtonian Magazine named Dennis, for the fourth year in a row, one of “Washington’s most influential people” in banking and finance, saying he was one of the experts “who shape the laws that govern the country and ultimately affect the course of history.”  The New York Times profiled Mr. Kelleher in “Facing Down the Bankers,” referring to him as “one of the most powerful lobbyists on financial reform” and he was featured in the award-winning Frontline documentary “Money, Power and Wall Street,” on PBS’s “Braking the Banks,” in Steven Brill’s best-selling book “Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall—and Those Fighting to Reverse It,” and in Jerry Epstein’s new book “Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance For The Rest of Us.”

Prior to Better Markets, Mr. Kelleher worked for almost eight years in senior staff positions in the United States Senate, concluding his service in 2010 as Chief Counsel and Senior Leadership Advisor to the Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a member of Senate leadership.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Kelleher was a partner with the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he had an extensive and broad-ranging U.S. and European practice specializing in crisis management and complex corporate matters that focused on governance, securities, and financial markets.  Mr. Kelleher served four years of active-duty enlisted service in the Air Force as a crash/rescue firefighter/medic, which preceded his graduation with the highest honors from Brandeis University and with honors from Harvard Law School.

Highlighted Recent Activity

1. 1. TV Appearances: Discussing the Silicon Valley Bank Failure (CNN), Examining SBF, Lawless Crypto Industry, & the 2024 Campaign (Bloomberg TV),  Commenting on reports that Trump is planning to Weaken Fed’s Independence (Bloomberg TV), Trump, Crypto, and the Election (BBC News)
      
   2. In the News: Trump and GOP eye new limits on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Washington Post)
   3. OP-ED: What the crypto industry didn’t say in its deceptive — and effective — campaign ads (San Francisco Chronicle)
   4. In the News: How Donald Trump Is Making Big Promises to Big Business (NY Times)
   5. Event: Dennis Kelleher Discusses the Future of Crypto at Axios Event (Axios)
   6. Report:  Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Their Harmful Impact on Main Street Americans
   7. In the News: Trump’s Dangerous Embrace of Bitcoin and the Crypto Bros (New Yorker)
   8. In the News: Trump, Republicans court crypto votes and dollars at ‘Bitcoin 2024’ conference (Reuters)
   9. In the News: JPMorgan Warns Customers: Prepare to Pay for Checking Accounts (Wall Street Journal)
   10. Op-ed: Why Is the Government Encouraging a Taxpayer Bailout? (Politico)

Selected Recent Media

1. Trump picks crypto backer Paul Atkins as new Securities and Exchange Commission chair (NPR)

2. US consumer finance watchdog moves on new rules ahead of Trump takeover (Reuters)

3. Election betting markets take a victory lap after ‘predicting’ Trump’s win (Washington Post) 

4. The Worst of Crypto Is Yet to Come (The Atlantic)

5. Coinbase’s crypto crusade (Politico)

6. Bankers Dodging Blame for Money Laundering Never Ends (Bloomberg)

7. New titans of Wall Street: How trading firms stole a march on big banks (Financial Times) 

8. Caroline Ellison, whose testimony helped convict Sam Bankman-Fried, sentenced to two years in prison (CNN)

9. Meet the Traders Making Money Off the Trump Shooting and Biden’s Stumbles (WSJ)

10. US FDIC nominee to be grilled on fixing agency, bank regulations (Reuters)

Selected Profiles

1. Welling on Wall Street “Listening in–Better Markets“
2. The New York Times: “Facing Down the Bankers”​
3. Washington Post: “Preventing the next financial blowout: A conversation with Dennis Kelleher”
4. CQ: “Kelleher: Dodd-Frank Defender”
5. Wealth Management: “The Watchdog”
6. Bill Moyers: “The Swamp Fighters: Dennis Kelleher on CFPB, Dodd-Frank and the Trump Era“
7. INET: “Wall Street is Better at Gambling than Finance”

Selected TV Appearances

1. Bloomberg TV: Dennis Kelleher Talks SBF, Lawless Crypto Industry, & the 2024 Campaign
2. Bloomberg TV: Dennis Kelleher on Why Bitcoin ETFs Will Harm Investors
3. Bloomberg TV: Dennis Kelleher Discusses Powell Testimony with Romaine Bostick on Bloomberg TV’s The Close 
4. CNN: Dennis Kelleher Discusses the Silicon Valley Bank Failure
5. Bloomberg TV: Dennis Kelleher Discusses SVB Failure and Fed Investigation
6. CNN: Dennis Kelleher Discusses FTX and the Future of Crypto
7. Bloomberg TV: Dennis Kelleher discusses the Robinhood IPO Anniversary on Bloomberg TV
8. Documentary Appearance: “Gaming Wall Street” (HBO MAX))
9. CNBC: “Dennis Kelleher discussing PFOF on CNBC’s Fast Money“
10. BNN Bloomberg “No one knows how many Archegos’ there are in the financial markets“

Documentaries:

1.  Bloomberg: “RUIN: Money, Ego and Deception at FTX“
2. HBO Max: “Gaming Wall Street”
3. “The CON: The Truth Behind the Largest Criminal Conspiracy in American History“
4. PBS Need to Know: “Braking the Banks”​
5. PBS Frontline: “Money, Power and Wall Street”

Selected Op-Eds

1. San Francisco Chronicle: What the crypto industry didn’t say in its deceptive — and effective — campaign ads
2. Politico: Why Is the Government Encouraging a Taxpayer Bailout?
3. The Hill: Congress must ask tough questions about crypto industry favored legislation
4. LA Times: The dangerous push to legalize gambling on U.S. elections
5. American Banker: Well-capitalized banks are good for everyone, except Wall Street CEOs
6. Financial Times: Where regulators could reform Wall Street in 2023
7. Barron’s: Regulators Still Aren’t Serious About Ending Too Big to Fail
8. San Francisco Chronicle: Robinhood says it serves Main Street. In reality it serves Wall Street 
9. Financial Times: “Why Jay Powell has been a ‘dangerous man’ at the Fed“
10. The Hill: “Putting the SEC cops back on the Wall Street beat“

Selected Speeches and Presentations

1. “Too-Big-To-Fail Problem is Alive, Well and Getting Worse“, Financial Stability Board Workshop at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY
2. “Stress Tests as a Policy Tool“, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Stress Testing Conference
3. “The State of Financial Reform: A View from the United States“, Financial Risk and Stability Conference (Berlin, Germany)
4. “Ten Years After the Financial Crisis: Closing Loopholes, Avoiding Blindspots and Finding Economic Justice”, Georgetown Law School
5. “Deregulation Unleashes Wall Street to Prey on Investors, Consumers and All Hard-Working Americans“,  Global Shareholder Activism Conference
6. “Financial Reform Is Working, But Deregulation That Incentivizes One-Way Bets Is Sowing the Seeds of Another Catastrophic Financial Crash“, INET Conference (Edinburg, Scotland)
7. “Moving America Forward: Education, Jobs, and the Economy”, Democratic National Convention Platform Drafting Committee
8. “Fifth Anniversary of Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Law”, Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

Selected Testimony

1. House Financial Services Committee: “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide, Part II“
2. Senate Agriculture Committee: “The State of the Derivatives Market and Perspectives for CFTC Reauthorization“
3. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee: “FSOC Accountability: Nonbank Designations”
4. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee: “Restricting Access to Financial Advice: Evaluating the Costs and Consequences for Working Families”
5. Senate Agriculture Committee: “Reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission”
6. House Financial Services Committee: “Examining the Impact of the Volcker Rule on Markets, Businesses, Investors and Job Creation“

Selected Comment Letters

1. Basel Committee on Climate-Related Financial Risks at Banks
2. TD Bank/First Horizon Merger (Federal Reserve/OCC)
3. Third-Party Risk Management Guidance (FDIC)
4. Broker-Dealer Digital Engagement Practices (SEC)
5. Debit Card Transaction Regulations (FRS)

Selected Briefs

1. Robinhood Financial LLC v. Galvin
2. Citadel Securities v. SEC
3. Goldman Sachs v. Arkansas Teacher Retirement System
4. New England Teamsters v. Sun Trust
5. Interactive Brokers LLC v. Rohit Saroop
6. SEC v. JP Morgan Case
7. MetLife v. Financial Stability Oversight Council

Selected Reports

1. The Unseen Banking Crisis Concealed Behind the Climate Crisis
2. Federal Reserve Policies and Systemic Instability: Decoupling Asset Pricing From Underlying Risks
3. Protecting Our Economy by Strengthening the U.S. Banking System Through Higher Capital Requirements
4. The Agenda for the Fed’s Next Vice Chair for Supervision
5. Should Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell Be Reappointed?
6. Road to Recovery: Protecting Main Street From President Trump’s Dangerous Deregulation of Wall Street
7. President Obama in His Own Words: Making Financial Reform a Reality 2009-2016
8. Ten Years of Dodd-Frank & Financial Reform: Obama’s Successes, Trump’s Rollbacks & Future Challenges
9. An Update on Supreme Court Cases Involving the Financial and Economic Security and Prosperity of the American People
10. Goldman Sachs’ Twenty-Year RAP Sheet of Repeated Illegal Conduct
11. Cost of the Crisis: $20 Trillion and Counting