David Silberman

David Silberman has been involved in consumer finance issues from a wide range of perspectives for over three decades. From 1985-1997 first as Deputy General Counsel of the AFL-CIO and then as President and CEO of Union Privilege, a not-for-profit affiliate of the AFL-CIO, he led the development and oversaw the delivery of a range of consumer financial products and services to union members. After a brief stint in private practice, in 1999 Mr. Silberman was named General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Kessler Financial Services, a privately-held company providing marketing and advisory services to financial institutions and their affinity-group partners.

In 2010 Mr. Silberman joined the Treasury Department as part of the Implementation Team tasked with building the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When the CFPB opened its doors in 2011, Mr. Silberman was named Assistant Director for Cards, Deposits, and Payments and in 2012 he became the Associate Director for the Division of Research, Markets, and Regulations, a position he held until he retired from the Bureau in 2020. From January 2016 to November 2017 he also served as Acting Deputy Director of the Bureau.

Since retiring from the CFPB Mr. Silberman has served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Responsible Lending and Senior Advisor to the Financial Health Network. He also teaches a course in Consumer Finance Policy at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy School in addition to his course at Harvard Law School.

Mr. Silberman graduated from Brandeis University and Harvard Law School. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Judge David Bazelon on the D.C. Circuit and then to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. After his clerkship, Mr. Silberman joined the labor law firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser where he worked until joining the AFL-CIO.