Consumer Federation of America’s board announces new CEO

After 39 years at the Federation, Jack Gillis turns over leadership to long-standing public policy advocate 

CFA Board Chair Marceline White of Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition announced the appointment of Susan Weinstock as the new President and CEO of the Consumer Federation of America.  “After an exhaustive nationwide search process which considered 50 candidates for the position, CFA’s search committee, assisted by the search firm Vetted Solutions, recommended Ms. Weinstock to the CFA Executive Committee who immediately approved the appointment,” said Ms. White.

Most recently, Ms. Weinstock served as AARP’s Vice President of Financial Resilience Programming and is a former CFA staffer.  Her background includes service in the office of then Congressman Edward Markey, 20 years in various positions at AARP, serving as Director of the Consumer Banking Project at the Pew Charitable Trusts, and joining the Senior Executive Service as Director of the Office of Consumer Policy at the U.S. Treasury.  While at CFA she was part of the team that pushed hard for the Dodd-Frank Act and the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Ms. Weinstock will take over as CFA’s CEO on May 2, 2022.

Chairing the search committee was CFA’s Board Secretary-Treasurer Larry Blanchard who said, “We had a large number of extremely qualified candidates to consider and after a very thorough vetting of all of them, Ms. Weinstock was the unanimous recommendation of the search committee.”

“After 39 years with the Federation and 4 years as its leader, I’m 100% confident that CFA is in good hands with Susan Weinstock at the helm.  Personally, it has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as CFA’s Executive Director/CEO and I know Susan will build on, and grow, CFA’s presence as a critically important public policy changemaker,” said Jack Gillis, CFA’s outgoing Executive Director/CEO.

Upon receiving the appointment, Ms. Weinstock said, “I am honored to be named as CFA’s next CEO. I look forward to working with the staff and board to continue building on CFA’s long history of successfully supporting and protecting consumers on issues that are so vital to health and financial security like housing, product and food safety, financial services, insurance, and more.”