Biography
Gaurav Vasisht is a financial services regulatory and public policy lawyer with substantial federal and state-level experience across banking, insurance, securities, and emerging financial technologies. He has served as an adviser to a former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, as a lawyer to three Governors of New York, and in key roles at the New York Department of Financial Services ("NYDFS"), its predecessor, the New York Insurance Department, and the New York Attorney General's Office.
As Senior Vice President and Director of the financial regulation program at the Volcker Alliance ("Alliance") from 2014 to 2020, Gaurav advised former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker and numerous Volcker Alliance board members on financial stability and regulatory matters. He also guided the development of reform proposals and promoted the Alliance's policy priorities before the federal government, including the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the House Financial Services Committee, and an array of financial regulatory agencies.
Before joining the Alliance, Gaurav spent a decade in New York State government. Most recently, he served as Executive Deputy Superintendent of the NYDFS, heading the agency's Banking Division. In this role, Gaurav supervised all state-chartered depository institutions, most U.S.-based branches, agencies, and representative offices of foreign banking organizations, and all of New York's mortgage bankers, brokers, servicers, money transmitters, and finance companies. Gaurav also co-directed DFS's anti-money laundering and international sanctions enforcement initiative, assisted in the supervision of independent monitors, and vetted financial technology companies' applications for licensure under NYS Banking Law.
Gaurav's service in NYS government extends beyond DFS. In addition to serving as Senior Deputy Superintendent of DFS's predecessor agency, the NYS Insurance Department, Gaurav worked as First Assistant Counsel and Assistant Counsel to three Governors of New York and as Assistant Attorney General in the Investment Protection Bureau of the NYS Attorney General's Office. In the Governor's Counsel's Office, Gaurav provided legal advice and counsel to the Governor and senior executive staff on banking and financial services policy and spearheaded New York's legislative response to the 2008 foreclosure crisis. As Assistant Attorney General, Gaurav was part of a team that conducted Martin Act and Donnelly Act investigations and brought enforcement actions for securities fraud and antitrust violations. He was previously an attorney in private practice.
Gaurav is co-author of "What Makes a Regulator Excellent?" in Achieving Regulatory Excellence, a book edited by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and published by the Brookings Institution Press. A graduate of New York University and St. John's University School of Law, Gaurav has worked on pioneering initiatives discussed in a leading law and policy textbook and covered in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. Gaurav has been a Non-Resident Fellow at the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law School, is a contributor to Penn Law's Regulatory Review, and frequently speaks on issues of relevance to the financial services industry.