Dan Quan is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, managing partner of Banks Street Advisors, and senior adviser for McKinsey’s banking practice. A nationally recognized fintech thought leader, Quan serves as a bridge between Silicon Valley and the Beltway. His deep understanding of disruptive technologies and regulatory policies make him a trusted adviser to policymakers and to CEOs of successful fintech firms.
Quan previously served as senior adviser to the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where he led its fintech office, Project Catalyst. At the CFPB, Quan’s work focused on identifying and promoting innovative technologies and business models that help solve the most complex issues in consumer finance. He aggressively and successfully pushed policies that enabled a thriving fintech environment, including consumer-permissioned data access/open banking and the use of artificial intelligence and alternative data in credit underwriting. Sensing the urgent need to further foster fintech growth in the United States, Quan conceived and developed the first regulatory sandbox at the federal level to create a safe harbor where fintech firms could experiment and innovate. Quan has built strong relationships with regulators in the United States and around the world; under his leadership, the CFPB joined the Global Financial Innovation Network, a group of financial regulators that aim to foster regulatory cooperation and innovation.
Before joining the CFPB, Quan was a research associate at Harvard Business School, where he worked for Peter Tufano. Quan also contributed significantly to two influential Harvard Business School research projects on U.S. competitiveness: Prosperity at Risk (2012) and Competitiveness at a Crossroads (2013). Prior to that, Quan was a consultant at Willis Towers Watson.
Quan holds an MA in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and an MBA from Drexel University’s Bennet S. LeBow College of Business. He is also a chartered financial analyst.