Heather Russell Koenig

Heather Russell is an accomplished legal executive with more than 20 years of diverse experience across the global financial services sector including leadership roles at Fifth Third Bank, Bank of New York Mellon and Bank of America. She brings terrific expertise and skills that are highly relevant to TransUnion, including consumer financial services, data privacy and security, regulatory compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and FinTech. Ms. Russell will be responsible for all legal, government relations, corporate governance and compliance, and consumer privacy functions of TransUnion and its subsidiaries, reporting to me and serving on TransUnion’s Executive Committee. For more information, read TransUnion’s press release:

Prior to joining TransUnion, Ms. Russell was a partner in Buckley Sandler’s New York and Washington, DC offices and led the firm’s Financial Institutions Regulation, Supervision & Technology (FIRST) practice. Ms. Russell spearheaded the firm’s Financial Institutions Regulation, Supervision & Technology (FIRST) practice, which combines institutional bank regulatory capabilities with the firm’s broader regulatory compliance, enforcement, transactional, and fintech practices to provide an integrated and comprehensive approach for financial institutions, as well as new entrants in the financial services marketplace to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving regulatory and business environment.

Eight years post-financial crisis, many banks, financial services institutions, and fintech companies are still saddled with onerous limits on their ability to operate at their full potential and deliver maximum results to their shareholders. Ms. Russell and the FIRST team helped banks, financial services institutions, and fintech companies deliver an enterprise-level “whole institution” perspective to their regulators – from risk and data management to capital planning, governance, and other prudential issues – which can significantly expedite the lifting of limitations and empower firms to execute on their long - awaited growth strategies.

Prior to joining Buckley Sandler in 2016, Ms. Russell was Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary for Fifth Third Bancorp, the 12th largest U.S. bank. Before that, she was Global Chief Regulatory Counsel at BNY Mellon, where she created and led the company’s global Office of Public Policy and Regulatory Affairs, managing the bank’s relationships with its regulators in 100 countries. Ms. Russell also spent five years with Bank of America, where she served as lead counsel for a number of the bank’s divisions, including Global Risk, Supervisory and Regulatory Relations, Deposit and Debit Products, Marketing, Privacy, Online and Mobile Banking, and Sales Practices. She was also instrumental in Bank of America’s acquisitions of Merrill Lynch, LaSalle Bank, Countrywide and US Trust. She previously practiced law for eight years at Skadden in its Washington and London offices, focusing on bank regulatory, consumer financial services, international corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions.

Ms. Russell is an adjunct professor at Boston University School of Law where she teaches courses on fintech and the Future of Banking. She is also a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar Forum on Finance in a Changing World, and is a frequent speaker on bank regulatory issues and the intersection of technology and banking. She was recognized this year by /Legal 500/for her work in Financial Services Regulation.

Ms. Russell received her B.A. from the College of William & Mary and graduated cum laude from American University Washington College of Law, where she served as Senior Articles Editor of the /Law Review/and was recognized as the law school’s “Most Outstanding Graduate.” After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Claude M. Hilton, then-Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Ms. Russell is active in numerous industry associations, including the National Women’s Law Center and the ABA Banking Law Committee, for which she Vice-Chairs. She is a member of the New York and Washington DC bars and is co-located in the firm’s New York and Washington DC offices.