FDIC's Top Hill Liaison to Become OCC's Chief of Staff

 

WASHINGTON — Paul Nash, a former lobbyist and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s chief congressional liaison, was named chief of staff at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Monday.

He will now become one of the top aides to new Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, who also hails from the FDIC. Nash is expected to start on May 21.

Technically, Nash succeeds John Walsh, who had been the agency's chief of staff until taking over as acting comptroller in August 2010. The OCC also announced Monday that Walsh will officially retire.

"For six and a half years, John has been a mainstay of the OCC's Executive Committee," said Curry in a press release. "He also admirably served for 18 months as Acting Comptroller during a particularly challenging time for the agency. Since I joined the OCC last month, John has been an incredible source of information and advice to me."

Curry praised Nash for "a wealth of public and private sector experience" that he brings to the OCC.

"I know that Paul will bring additional insight and strength to the OCC's already strong leadership team," Curry said.

Nash, who previously served as a senior lobbyist for Verizon Wireless and as a staffer on the Senate Banking Committee, was a key figure at the FDIC during the all-consuming regulatory reform effort on Capitol Hill that resulted in the Dodd-Frank Act.

He was appointed by former FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair in mid-2009 as deputy to the chairman for external affairs, then a newly-created position. In that role, Nash was the agency's point-person on a broad array of legislative initiatives following the financial crisis, and also helped lead outreach efforts with community bankers, including the launch of the new Advisory Committee on Community Banking.

Before joining the FDIC, Nash had been an executive director and counsel for Verizon since 2001, focusing on federal affairs for the wireless carrier. Following work on the 1996 campaign for Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., Nash went to work for the senator — now the Banking Committee's chairman — as a legislative aide.

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