Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau named two new leaders in the supervision and enforcement departments of the Bureau.

Lorelei Salas will join the CFPB as Assistant Director for Supervision Policy and will also serve as the Acting Assistant Director for Supervision Examinations. From 2016 to 2021, Ms. Salas served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, overseeing hundreds of inspectors, attorneys, and other professionals. Previously, Ms. Salas was the legal director at Make the Road New York, supervising immigration, housing, and employment legal services programs. She also led the legal department at Catholic Migration Services, supervising the same areas of legal practice. In 2009 Ms. Salas was nominated by President Barack Obama as the Wage and Hour Administrator at the United States Department of Labor. Ms. Salas also worked at the New York State Attorney General’s Office in the Litigation and Labor Bureaus and held multiple senior management positions at the New York State Department of Labor. Ms. Salas was also the recipient of an Open Society Foundation Leadership in Government fellowship, founded by George Soros to assist former federal, state and local government officials to remain engaged in their areas of public policy.   Prior to her legal career, Ms. Salas worked as a private sector auditor reviewing companies’ compliance with their codes of conduct, as well as federal and state workplace laws. Ms. Salas earned an A.A. from La Guardia Community College, a B.A. from Hunter College, and a J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School.

Eric Halperin joins the CFPB as Assistant Director for the Office of Enforcement. Mr. Halperin has served in a number of positions in the non-profit and government sectors. Most recently, Mr. Halperin was CEO of Civil Rights Corps. From 2010 to 2014, Mr. Halperin served in leadership roles in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department, first as Special Counsel for Fair Lending and later as Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General overseeing the Division’s fair housing, fair lending, and employment enforcement programs.  He also served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division from 1998 to 2004. Mr. Halperin also worked as a senior advisor to the Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Program and as the Director of the Center for Responsible Lending’s Litigation Program and its Washington office. Mr. Halperin received his B.A. from Wesleyan University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.