Lorelei Salas is a visiting senior fellow with The Century Foundation. An accomplished labor and consumer law advocate, Salas has decades of experience in public service and has been committed to fighting inequality throughout her career. Salas has advanced policies safeguarding families from predatory practices, promoting labor rights, and ensuring economic equity for vulnerable communities.
Salas is also a senior fellow with Protect Borrowers and is an adjunct professor and leader in residence in the Economics and Business Department of the Colin Powell School for Civic & Global Leadership/City College of New York. She was the supervision director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until February 2025, leading examinations of banks and other financial institutions. From 2016 to 2021, Salas was the commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, the oldest municipal agency in the country enforcing consumer and worker protection laws. She has held several senior roles in New York State Government and the nonprofit sector. Salas led legal services teams at Make the Road NY and Catholic Migration Services from 2012 until 2016. Salas was a leadership in government fellow with the Open Society Foundations and a Fulbright Specialist and is admitted to practice law in New York State.
Salas has published opinion pieces and analysis in the New York Daily News, the American Prospect, Data for Progress, Economic Policy Institute, and El Diario NY, among others, and she has been interviewed extensively in English and Spanish for various media outlets, including an appearance on 60 Minutes.