Groups: Event Speakers for Innovation, Regulation and Risk in 2026
Director of Financial Services, Consumer Federation of America
Adam Rust is the Director of Financial Services at the Consumer Federation of America. At CFA, he coordinates regulatory and legislative activities in banking, payments, fintech, and chartering. In this role, he shapes the work of CFA’s coalition of 250 national, state, and local consumer organizations.
Formerly, he was a senior policy advisor for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, where he worked on a similar portfolio. Additionally, he served two terms on the Board of Directors of the US Faster Payments Council.
Before NCRC, he spent 15 years as Director of Research at Reinvestment Partners, a non-profit advocacy and community development group in Durham, North Carolina. He produced research reports, regulatory comments, and a well-read blog on policy solutions for alternative financial services products. He later led a fintech startup that enrolled previously unbanked workers in FDIC-insured bank accounts. In 2005, he published "This Is My Home," a book outlining policy initiatives to foster reinvestment in manufactured housing communities.
Adam has graduate degrees in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia, City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Finance from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Adam lives with his wife and two children in Durham, North Carolina.