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Dennis M. Kelleher

Dennis Kelleher is Co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, the leading Washington, DC-based nonprofit fighting for an economy that works for all Americans. His focus is on broad-based wealth creation for Main Street Americans; resisting wealth extraction; and promoting economic security, opportunity, and prosperity. At Better Markets, Mr. Kelleher leads a team of substantive experts in litigation, regulation, rulemaking, legislation, public advocacy, and research to ensure that the economy works for all Americans and is supported by a stronger, safer, more balanced financial system. He has participated in more than 400 rule makings, 25 legal cases, 4,000 media inquiries, 250 meetings with high-level government officials, 150 live TV appearances, 100 radio appearances, 50 op-eds, 35 speeches, 12 media profiles and documentaries, and 10 testimonies before Congress and other fora.

His wide-ranging influence reaches across Washington policymaking. In 2026, Washingtonian Magazine named Mr. Kelleher one of “Washington’s 500 most influential people” in banking and finance for the fifth consecutive year, placing him among Beltway 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.” He was also 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 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.

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