The career of William S. Haraf has spanned the worlds of commercial and investment banking, the executive branch of the federal government, academia and think tanks. Appointed commissioner of the Department of Financial Institutions by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008, he stepped down as California’s top financial planner in 2011.

He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1979 before becoming an assistant professor of economics at Brown University. In 1983, Haraf moved into public service, serving as special assistant to the chairman and senior staff economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in the Reagan Administration.

Two years later Haraf joined the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., as the J. Edward Lundy Scholar and director of the financial markets project. In 1989, he moved to the private sector for five years as director of policy analysis with Citicorp in Washington, D.C., before another five-year stint as senior vice president of strategic policy development and planning for Bank of America. In 1999, Haraf was tapped to be managing director at Bank of America Securities.

From 2005 until his swearing in at the Department of Financial Institutions in 2008, Haraf was an independent consultant with the Promontory Financial Group and a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Davis.

Haraf Leaving Post as California DFI Commissioner (by Jim Rubenstein, Credit Union Times)

Speaker's Biography (Milken Institute)

William Haraf Appointed Commissioner of Financial Institutions (DFI website)