FINANCIAL LITERACY AND EDUCATION COMMISSION

February 4, 2016

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Jacob J. Lew

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury

Jack Lew was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 27, 2013, to serve as the 76th 

Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Lew previously served as White House Chief of Staff. Prior to that 

role, Lew was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a position he also held in 

President Clinton's Cabinet from 1998 to 2001. Before returning to OMB in 2010, Lew first joined the 

Obama Administration as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources.

Before joining the State Department, Lew served as managing director and chief operating officer for 

two different Citigroup business units. Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief operating 

officer of New York University, where he was responsible for budget, finance, and operations, and 

served as a professor of public administration. From 2004 through 2008, Lew served on the Board of 

Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service and chaired its Management, 

Administration, and Governance Committee.

As OMB Director from 1998 to 2001, Lew led the Administration budget team and served as a member 

of the National Security Council. During his tenure at OMB, the U.S. budget operated at a surplus for 

three consecutive years. Earlier, Lew served as OMB's Deputy Director and was a member of the 

negotiating team that reached a bipartisan agreement to balance the budget. As Special Assistant to 

President Clinton from 1993 to 1994, Mr. Lew helped design Americorps, the national service program.

Lew began his career in Washington in 1973 as a legislative aide. From 1979 to 1987, he was a 

principal domestic policy advisor to House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr, when he served the House 

Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as Assistant Director and then Executive Director. He was 

the Speaker's liaison to the Greenspan Commission, which negotiated a bipartisan solution to extend the 

solvency of Social Security in 1983, and he was responsible for domestic and economic issues, 

including Medicare, budget, tax, trade, appropriations, and energy issues.

Before joining the Obama Administration, Lew co-chaired the Advisory Board for City Year New York 

and was on the boards of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the 

Brookings Institution Hamilton Project, and the Tobin Project. He is a member of the Council on 

Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and of the bar in Massachusetts and the 

District of Columbia.
John B. King, Jr.

Acting Secretary of Education

John B. King, Jr. (@JohnKingatED) is the Acting Secretary of Education, a position he assumed in 

January 2016. Before becoming Acting Secretary, Dr. King had served since January 2015 at the 

Department as Principal Senior Advisor. In that role, Dr. King carried out the duties of the Deputy 

Secretary, overseeing all preschool-through-12th-grade education policies, programs and strategic 

initiatives, as well as the operations of the Department.

King joined ED after serving at the helm of the New York State Education Department (NYSED) from 

2011 to 2015. In 2011, he was named the first African-American and Puerto Rican to serve as New York 

State Education Commissioner. As Commissioner, King served as chief executive officer of NYSED 

and president of the University of the State of New York (USNY), with responsibility for overseeing the 

state’s elementary and secondary schools (serving 3.1 million students), public, independent and 

proprietary colleges and universities, libraries, museum, and numerous other educational institutions. 

Before arriving at NYSED in 2009 as Senior Deputy Commissioner, King was a Managing Director 

with Uncommon Schools, the nonprofit organization managing some of the highest performing urban 

public schools in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. He also co-founded and led the nationally 

recognized Roxbury Preparatory Charter School (Roxbury Prep) in Boston. Under his leadership, 

Roxbury Prep’s predominantly low-income students earned the highest state exam scores of any urban, 

public middle school in Massachusetts, closed the achievement gap, and outperformed students in the 

Boston city schools, as well as schools in the nearby affluent suburbs.

King began his career in education as a high school social studies teacher in Puerto Rico and 

Boston. He holds a B.A from Harvard University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and an M.A. and Ed.D. 

from Teachers College at Columbia University.

King currently resides in Takoma Park, Maryland with his wife, Melissa, and their two daughters.
Richard Cordray

Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Richard Cordray serves as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He previously 

led the Bureau’s Enforcement Division.

Prior to joining the Bureau, Mr. Cordray served on the front lines of consumer protection as Ohio’s 

Attorney General. Mr. Cordray recovered more than $2 billion for Ohio’s retirees, investors, and 

business owners and took major steps to help protect its consumers from fraudulent foreclosures and 

financial predators. In 2010, his office responded to a record number of consumer complaints, but Mr. 

Cordray went further and opened that process for the first time to small businesses and non-profit 

organizations to ensure protections for even more Ohioans. To recognize his work on behalf of 

consumers as Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau presented Mr. Cordray with an award for 

promoting an ethical marketplace.

Mr. Cordray also served as Ohio Treasurer and Franklin County Treasurer, two elected positions in 

which he led state and county banking, investment, debt, and financing activities. As Ohio Treasurer, he 

resurrected a defunct economic development program that provides low-interest loan assistance to small 

businesses to create jobs, re-launched the original concept as GrowNOW, and pumped hundreds of 

millions of dollars into access for credit to small businesses. Mr. Cordray simultaneously created a 

Bankers Advisory Council to share ideas about the program with community bankers across Ohio.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Cordray was an adjunct professor at the Ohio State University College of Law, 

served as a State Representative for the 33rd Ohio House District, was the first Solicitor General in 

Ohio’s history, and was a sole practitioner and Of Counsel to Kirkland & Ellis. Mr. Cordray has argued 

seven cases before the United States Supreme Court, including by special appointment of both the 

Clinton and Bush Justice Departments. He is a graduate of Michigan State University, Oxford 

University, and the University of Chicago Law School. Mr. Cordray was Editor-in-Chief of the 

University of Chicago Law Review and later clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Byron White and 

Anthony Kennedy.

Mr. Cordray lives in Grove City, Ohio with his wife Peggy – a Professor at Capital University Law 

School in Columbus – and twin children Danny and Holly.
Melissa Koide

Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Consumer Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Melissa Koide serves as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consumer Policy. In this role, she is 

responsible for matters concerning financial access, financial education, and consumer policy in the 

United States. She also served as the Executive Director for the President’s Advisory Council on 

Financial Capability for Young Americans and supports the Secretary in his leadership of the Financial 

Literacy and Education Commission. Prior to joining Treasury, Ms. Koide was the Vice President of 

Policy at the Center for Financial Services Innovation.

Alexia LaTortue

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Development Policy

Alexia Latortue is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Development Policy at the 

U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that capacity, she leads efforts to promote inclusive growth and 

poverty reduction in developing and emerging countries through engagement with multilateral 

development banks, including the World Bank and the regional development banks. She also advises on 

priority reforms and innovative financing proposals for development and shapes policy priorities and 

positions on key development issues such as infrastructure finance, financial and social inclusion, and 

debt. Prior to Treasury, Ms Latortue spent 10 years with the World Bank where her last assignment was 

Deputy CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a unit dedicated to advancing 

financial inclusion. Prior to that, Ms Latortue served in several development-related positions including 

as director of a technical assistance program in Haiti. Ms Latortue grew up in West Africa and Austria, 

received her Master’s from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and has 

worked in developing countries around the world.

Bryan Ashton

Assistant Director, Student Life, Student Wellness Center, Ohio State University 

Bryan serves as an Assistant Director within the Student Life Student Wellness Center, overseeing 

financial education and outreach, Scarlet & Gray Financial peer to peer financial coaching and 

additional functional areas in the SLSWC. He has been selected and invited to speak at numerous local 

and national conferences on financial wellness, authored numerous pieces on collegiate financial 

education and is the Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the National Summit on Collegiate Financial 

Wellness. Additionally, he most recently served on the research team for the National Student Financial 

Wellness Study administered through The Ohio State University.
Betty Habershon

Founder and Director, Community Financial Center, Prince George’s Community College

Betty Habershon is the founder and director of the Community Financial Center of Prince George’s 

Community College, which seeks to expand the financial capability of students and community 

members through financial education, financial coaching and tax preparation. She coordinates the Free 

Tax Program at Prince George’s Community College, which has been in place for 14 years providing 

free tax assistance to low and moderate income residents and seniors of Prince George’s county. Ms. 

Habershon serves as the director of the Prince George’s CASH Campaign, which is a growing coalition 

of over 40 asset building organizations seeking to expand the financial capability of residents within 

Prince George’s County, Maryland. In partnership with United Way of the National Capital Area, Prince 

George’s Community College has open the Financial Empowerment Center at Prince George’s 

Community College and provides onsite financial services to students and community members.

Mark Mitsui

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Colleges, US Department of Education

Mark Mitsui is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Colleges in the Office of Career, 

Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE). He served previously as the President of North Seattle 

Community College (NSCC). Prior to that, Mitsui served as Vice President of Student Services for 

South Seattle Community College (SSCC), Assistant Dean at Green River Community College, Director 

of Student Success and Retention Services at NSCC and as a tenured faculty at Renton Technical 

College. International student enrollment increased by over 50% during his tenure as president and 

hosted several international delegations researching the American community college system. He 

worked on the statewide task force to review and redesign the performance funding system in 

Washington’s Community and Technical Colleges, including the student success metrics. He oversaw 

the completion of a new Opportunity Center (a one-stop) that brought together three state agencies to 

provide integrated federal, state and private funding streams and services in order to move low income 

residents out of poverty through education. He has also worked with a variety of industry-higher 

education consortia to address skills gaps in high demand sectors. He is very committed to serving 

under-represented, under-served communities and led strategic student success efforts to serve these 

communities, including initiatives to help both South Seattle and North Seattle Community Colleges 

become minority-serving institutions.

Jeff Webster

Director of Research, TG (Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp.)

Jeff Webster has worked for TG since 1986 and now holds the position of Director of Research. Jeff has 

overseen numerous studies on student loan default, debt burden, student retention, and the demand for 

student aid. His area pioneered the use of predictive modeling to improve student loan default 

prevention efforts and developed the first consumer facing tool to show student debt-to-income ratios by 

major by institution. His latest research focuses on the efficacy of student loan counseling.