Rohit Chopra, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, is expected to be nominated by President Trump as the commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission, according to an announcement by the White House on October 19th.
Interestingly, the Indian American resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., was part of Hillary Clinton’s transition team. A financial services expert, currently, Chopra is currently a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focuses on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families, the White House said in a press release. If confirmed, he would serve the remainder of a seven-year term that expires Sept. 25, 2019, according to the White House.
According to a report in Politico, Chopra was hired at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau early in Elizabeth Warren’s tenure when she headed that agency during the Obama administration. In an Aug. 30, 2016 report, the news outlet said, “Politico has learned that Hillary Clinton has named a progressive with close ties to Elizabeth Warren to her transition team in a move that seems aimed at mollifying liberals unhappy with earlier choices.”
The Secretary of the Treasury also appointed him as the agency’s student loan ombudsman. In 2016, Chopra served as special adviser to the Secretary of Education. Chopra it said, “battled for-profit colleges and loan servicers as the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…”
The FTC works with the Justice Department to enforce antitrust law and pursues companies accused of deceptive advertising. It is an independent agency that is headed by a chairman and four commissioners. No more than three commissioners can come from any one party.
The agency is currently headed by Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen, a Republican, with Democrat Terrell McSweeny the only other commissioner. The president has long been expected to name a permanent chair and fill the three empty commission seats, two Republican and one Democrat or independent, according to a zeebiz.com report.
Before he joined government service, Chopra was an associate at McKinsey & Company, where he served clients in the financial services and consumer technology sectors. Chopra holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s in business administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.
