Newark, NJ – March 3, 2023 – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Wednesday that NJCA’s Financial Justice Program Director Beverly Brown Ruggia will lead the Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board (CAB), as Chair. The CFPB was created in the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and is the first federal agency dedicated to ensuring that consumers can make financial transactions and decisions without fear of unfair, deceptive practices (UDAP) in banking and finance.
Brown Ruggia was first appointed to the CAB as a member in 2021 for a two-year term. In her new position as Chair, she will work to ensure that the Bureau gets critical input from the range of stakeholders on the CAB and stakeholders in general. The appointment will give Brown Ruggia the opportunity to advise the CFPB in a leadership role that reflects her long-standing commitment to the mission of the Bureau.
“I thank Director Rohit Chopra for the opportunity to chair the CFPB’s CAB. He and many of the extraordinary public servants on his team have had a profound influence on my consumer finance protection advocacy for the last 12 years,” said Beverly Brown Ruggia. “I am proud and honored to work with them and the entire CAB to support the Bureau in its mission.”
In 2011 Brown Ruggia became an organizer and advocate working closely with NJCA’s outgoing Executive Director and current President Phyllis Salowe-Kaye to advance, enforce and strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act. In that same year the CFPB opened its doors, Brown Ruggia and Salowe-Kaye joined the national campaign to confirm Bureau’s first director, Richard Cordray, and establish rules to protect low- and moderate-income homebuyers from the deception and abuses by lenders that caused the 2008 Great Recession and foreclosure crisis.
Since then Brown Ruggia also has expanded and led NJCA’s advocacy for state and federal consumer finance protections, regulatory reforms and policies that create financial inclusion and that prevent UDAP in banking and in all forms of lending and debt collection.
“Beverly is a very well-known and well-respected consumer advocate in the halls of Trenton and Washington, as one of the few voices who consistently intervenes to prevent financial institutions from targeting the poor and vulnerable for profit, trapping them in cycles of debt,” said Dena Mottola Jaborska, NJCA Executive Director. “NJCA will continue our great partnership with the CFPB as Bev assumes this new and influential role, working hand in hand to protect consumers from the mountain of threats that they face today.”
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