Gerri Walsh

Gerri Walsh is Senior Vice President of Investor Education at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). In that capacity, she manages FINRA's investor education initiatives, including developing and implementing new programs, creating interactive tools for investors, publishing print and online educational materials, and coordinating with government and non-profit partners. She also serves as President of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, where she manages the Foundation's grant making and programmatic efforts to educate and protect investors. Her work focuses especially on research to advance understanding of the relationships among financial literacy, financial capability and financial well-being; leveraging distribution channels to distribute effective, unbiased financial education resources; and incubating scalable, sustainable programs focused on traditionally underinvested groups of Americans, including young adults, women, Native Americans and members of the U.S. military. She joined FINRA in May 2006.

Prior to joining FINRA, Ms. Walsh was Deputy Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) and, before that, Special Counsel to the Director of OIEA. She also served as a senior attorney in the SEC's Division of Enforcement, investigating and prosecuting violators of the federal securities laws.

From 1989 to 1994, Ms. Walsh was an associate with Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells LLC), a Washington, DC law firm. She received her J.D. from NYU School of Law in 1989 and her B.A. from Amherst College in 1985. She is a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars. She volunteers on the Board of Gifts for the Homeless, Inc. (a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the homeless in the greater DC area).