Graham Steele is an academic fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance. He is also a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that advances progressive policies that bring the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt into the 21st century.

Graham is an expert on financial regulation and financial institutions, with experience working at the highest levels of law and policy in Washington, D.C. Graham was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2021 to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, responsible for the department’s policy and programs related to banks, credit unions, insurance, consumer financial protection, community development and investment, and financial sector cybersecurity. He served in that position until January 2024.

Prior to the Treasury Department, Graham was the director of the Corporations and Society research initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a senior fellow with the American Economic Liberties Project. Before joining Stanford GSB, he was a member of the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

From 2015 to 2017, Graham was the Minority Chief Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs. From 2010 to 2015 he was a Legislative Assistant for United States Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), handling the Senator’s work as a member of the Senate Banking Committee. During that time, he also spent four years as the staff director of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions & Consumer Protection.

Graham has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Bloomberg Opinion, the Yale Law Journal, the University of Colorado Law Review, the George Mason Law Review, the University of Chicago Business Law Journal, and the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. He received his bachelors’ degree in political science from the University of Rochester and his law degree from The George Washington University Law School.