WASHINGTON – Today, the United States Department of the Treasury announced the appointment of new members of key staff. This diverse and deeply experienced team is prepared to deliver results for the American people by getting the economy back on track, strengthening the financial system, and restoring jobs.
Biographies of the appointees are listed below in alphabetical order:
Clement Abonyi Jr., Special Assistant, Legislative Affairs
Clement Abonyi, Jr. is a legislative policy and process professional who specializes in financial services matters. Most recently, he served as Director of Member Services to Chairwoman Maxine Waters of the House Committee on Financial Services. In that capacity, Abonyi led the Committee’s member services operation and maintained regular communication with standing Committees in the House of Representatives. He played key roles in advancing the Chairwoman’s legislation, advising on legislation drafted by Committee Members, and facilitating successful passage through the Committee and the House of Representatives. A first-generation American born to deaf immigrants, Abonyi received his Bachelor’s degree from The American University School of Public Affairs and is a native of South Norwalk, Connecticut.
Kimberly Clausing, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Office of Tax Policy
Kimberly Clausing most recently the Eric M. Zolt Professor of Tax Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law. She recently joined UCLA from Reed College, where she worked as the Thormund Miller and Walter Mintz Professor of Economics. She has published numerous articles on taxation, with a particular emphasis on the taxation of multinational companies, and she is the author of Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital (Harvard University Press, 2019). Professor Clausing has received two Fulbright Research awards, and her research has been supported by external grants from the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the International Centre for Tax and Development, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has worked on economic policy research with the International Monetary Fund, the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution, the Tax Policy Center, and the Center for American Progress. She has testified before both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Committee on Finance. Professor Clausing received her B.A. from Carleton College and her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Suzanna Fritzberg, Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary for Domestic Finance
Suzanna Fritzberg joins the Administration with experience in economic development at the state and local level, most recently founding and leading a public-private partnership for COVID relief in Birmingham, Alabama, where she worked directly with community members, elected leaders, small businesses, and institutional partners. She began her career in public service as Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the City of South Bend, Indiana, and served as a policy advisor to his 2020 campaign, where she led work on economic mobility. Fritzberg served on the Biden-Harris Treasury transition team and was a co-convener of the Biden-Harris campaign economic policy committee. Originally from Washington State, Fritzberg is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Oxford.
Itai Grinberg, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Tax Office of Tax Policy
Itai Grinberg is returning to the Treasury Department after spending ten years as a Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Since leaving the Treasury Department, his academic research has focused on international tax policy matters and the intersection of international tax law, international trade law, public international law, and international financial regulation. While in academia Grinberg also served as an outside international tax advisor to various multilateral institutions, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Grinberg previously served at the Treasury Department in the Office of the International Tax Counsel in the Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden Administrations. Prior to that, he practiced law in the tax group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. In 2005, Grinberg served as Counsel to the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, a bipartisan presidential advisory commission that proposed fundamental tax reforms for the United States. Raised in Colorado, Grinberg received his bachelor’s degree in economic and political science from Amherst College, and his law degree from Yale Law School.
Rebecca Kysar, Counselor to the Assistant Secretary, Office of Tax Policy
Rebecca M. Kysar has been a Professor of Law at Fordham University since 2018, where her academic research focuses on tax policy, international tax, and the tax legislative and budget processes. Most recently, she served on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition as an ad hoc advisor to the tax policy and Treasury agency review teams. Rebecca has testified before the U.S. Congress on international tax and tax regulatory matters. Prior to joining Fordham, Rebecca was on the faculty at Brooklyn Law School for nine years and served as the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. Before entering academia, she worked as a tax associate at Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, where she advised on tax issues related to restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, and other complex transactions. She also clerked for the Honorable Richard J. Cardamone on the U.S Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. A native of Greenwood, Indiana, Rebecca is a graduate of Indiana University and Yale Law School.
David Lipton, Counselor to the Secretary
David Lipton was the number two official at the International Monetary Fund for eight years until last March. Before that, he served in the Obama White House as Special Assistant to the President covering international economic affairs at the National Economic Council and National Security Council. Lipton spent five years in the Clinton Treasury Department where he supervised work with the transition economies rising to Under Secretary for International Affairs during the financial crisis in Asia. Before that, he and Jeffrey Sachs together advised governments in Eastern Europe during their transition to market economies. Lipton also has experience in the private financial sector, both at Citi and Moore Capital Management, a global hedge fund. Lipton earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. He resides in Washington, D.C. with his wife Susan Galbraith, and has three children and two grandchildren.
Adair Morse, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Capital Access, Office of Domestic Finance
Adair Morse most recently served as the Soloman P. Lee Chair in Business Ethics, Associate Professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Business, and founding faculty director of the Sustainable and Impact Finance initiative at Berkeley-Haas. Until recently, she was on the Governance and Allocations Committee of the California Rebuilding Fund and on the Expert Panel for oversight of the global fund for the Ministry of Finance of Norway. She is an award-winning teacher of New Venture Finance, Impact Investing, and Sustainable Investing. Adair’s research spans multiple areas of finance: household finance, FinTech, discrimination, climate finance, small business and venture finance, corruption, and pension management. Recent work includes papers on algorithmic discrimination, impact investment, and small business fiscal programs. She holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Michigan, two Master’s degrees from Purdue University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Colgate University.
Noel Andrés Poyo, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Economic Development, Office of Domestic Finance
Noel Andrés Poyo most recently served for fourteen years as Executive Director of the National Association for Latino Community Assets Builders (NALCAB), a non-profit membership organization that is the hub of a network of more than 120 community and economic development organizations that serve geographically and ethnically diverse Latino communities. Since 2015, he concurrently served as CEO of Escalera Community Investments, NALCAB’s subsidiary asset management company, which controls social investment funds designed to capitalize affordable housing projects and small businesses. Poyo’s 22 year career has focused on integrating low-income people and immigrants into mainstream financial services and real estate sectors of our economy as well as improving the livability and economic resilience of low-income neighborhoods and affordable housing communities. He has played diverse roles in the implementation of community development projects valued over $1 billion. From 2015 to 2017, Poyo served as one of 15 members of the Community Advisory Council for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has extensive experience advising the executive leadership of some of our nation’s largest banks as well as numerous nonprofit lenders and social investors. A graduate of Yale University, Poyo is bicultural and bilingual. He is a proud husband and father of three girls.
Laurie Schaffer, Principal Deputy General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel
Laurie Schaffer has been appointed to the position of Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Schaffer served as the Deputy General Counsel in the Legal Division of the Federal Reserve Board. In that role, she managed the Banking Regulation and Policy Group which has responsibility for the legal work related to supervision and regulation of banking organizations, as well as the review and management of various banking applications. Schaffer previously served from 2008-2011 in the Treasury Department as the Assistant General Counsel for Banking and Finance. She played a critical role in the Department response to the financial crisis and in the drafting the Administration’s regulatory reform legislation and providing legal and policy support during congressional consideration of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Schaffer is a graduate of Fordham University Law School and the American University, School of International Service.
Maddie Smith, Special Assistant, Office of the Secretary
Maddie Smith joins the Treasury Department from the public affairs and communications firm Rational 360 where she advised clients on strategic communications, messaging, and thought leadership. She has previously served on the Podium Operations team at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Smith is a native of Falls Church, Virginia, and a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Tom West, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Domestic Business Tax, Office of Tax Policy
Tom West is returning to the Treasury Department from the global accounting and advisory firm KPMG LLP where he advised clients on tax policy and regulatory matters. Previously, West served at the Treasury Department during the Obama-Biden Administration, spending five years in the Office of Tax Policy as Tax Legislative Counsel, managing the implementation of domestic tax. Prior to his government service, West spent 15 years in private practice advising clients on global tax planning and compliance. West holds a J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law and an LL.M. in Tax from Georgetown Law. He lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. with his wife and son.