Lecturer Bios
Pramit Das
Pramit Das is Associate Director-Technology of FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department. In this role, his responsibilities include managing a filings review group; assisting with administration of the filings review program; developing and maintaining the department’s technology needs; providing education to members, FINRA staff and other regulatory staff; and participating in certain rule amendment and rulemaking projects as necessary.
He served in the same role at NASD before its 2007 consolidation with NYSE Member Regulation. Prior to joining NASD in 1994, Mr. Das worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Arthur Andersen & Co. He holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MA in Financial Economics from Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. He was also Series 7 and 63 registered.
Melissa Koide
Melissa Koide is the CEO of FinRegLab, a nonprofit financial innovation and research center that examines how technology and data can help achieve public policy aspirations, address regulatory requirements, and lead to a more efficient and inclusive financial marketplace. FinRegLab provides an independent platform for financial stakeholders and policymakers to dialogue and gain an evidence-based understanding of new financial technologies. FinRegLab’s research and experiments focus on matters such as how data and technology can be used to expand prudent access to credit for underserved consumers and small businesses and how new technologies can improve customer onboarding and meet KYC obligations.
Prior to establishing FinRegLab, Ms. Koide served as the U.S. Treasury Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Consumer Policy. In that role, Ms. Koide helped to build the first government offered preretirement savings product, the myRA, and she established the $5 million Innovation Fund to support research and strategies to improve consumers’ financial health and their access to safe and affordable financial products and services. Before joining Treasury, she was the Vice President of Policy at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Ms. Koide is currently Vice Chair for the Milken Institute’s Fintech Advisory Council.
Haimera Workie, Esq.
Haimera Workie is a Senior Director responsible for heading up FINRA’s Office of Emerging Regulatory Issues, which focuses on analyzing new and emerging risks and trends related to the securities market. Previously, Mr. Workie served as Deputy Associate Director in the Division of Trading and Markets at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In this capacity, Mr. Workie was tasked with developing a variety of Dodd-Frank Act related rulemakings, supervising policy matters related to market intermediaries and financial market utilities, and representing the Commission before several international standard setting bodies.
Mr. Workie also previously served as Counsel to Commission Chair Mary Schapiro. Prior to joining the Commission, he was an associate at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, with a practice focusing on corporate law. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S., M.S.) and Harvard Law School (J.D.).
Karl Brock
Karl Brock is Vice President, Technology. In this capacity, he oversees strategy, development, support, and operations of enterprise application platforms and is the primary technology executive for the Enforcement, Advertising Regulation, Corporate Financing, Office of General Council and corporate systems.
Mr. Brock has been with FINRA since 2015 as an employee. He previously worked at FINRA as a consultant from 2006 – 2009, leading the Proctor rewrite and later as the technical lead for the NASD and NASDAQ Member Regulation merger. Prior to joining FINRA, Mr. Brock spent 15 years in the financial industry working for regulatory, banking, trading and mortgage organizations.
He also serves on FINRA’s Records Management Board, which is responsible for setting FINRA records management policy and for establishing and overseeing an enterprise-wide approach to records management, and is chairman of the Solutions Subcommittee, which is responsible for development of supporting technology and infrastructure.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Semiconductor Physics from Texas A&M University and graduate degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.