Amy Friend

Amy brings a deep understanding of financial regulatory issues to FS Vector with over 25 years of experience shaping banking and consumer financial protection law and regulation.  Amy was Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) from February 2013 to November 2017 where she served on the agency’s executive committee and oversaw all of the agency’s legal activities and licensing functions.  Amy led the team that developed the OCC’s strategic initiative on responsible innovation resulting in the establishment of the Office of Innovation and the Special Purpose National Bank charter for fintech companies. 

Before taking on this role at the OCC, Amy was a Managing Director at the Promontory Financial Group where she advised financial services companies about regulatory compliance and governance.  Amy also held a number of positions in the US Congress, including Chief Counsel to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs where she led the Committee’s work in crafting responses to the financial crisis, including the Dodd-Frank Act, and Minority General Counsel to the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs (now the House Committee on Financial Services).  Amy served as Assistant Chief Counsel to the OCC, focusing on consumer privacy, data security, and credit reporting, and as an associate in the law firms of Jenner and Block, and Brownstein, Zeidman, and Schomer.

Amy serves on the board of directors of Varo Bank, NA, the first fintech to receive a full-service national bank charter. She is also a director of FinRegLab, a newly established non-profit organization that conducts research and tests new technologies and data to inform public policy and market practices with the goal of improving financial services and expanding access. Amy is a co-founder of ALLRISE DC, a Washington DC-based organization that encourages and supports women's leadership in financial services through mentoring, networking and education. She also serves as a senior advisor to the Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR), a nonprofit dedicated to modernizing the financial regulatory system.

Amy holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center (cum laude) which honored her with a distinguished alumna award.

Professional affiliations

FS Vector