Christopher Laursen is a senior consultant at Straife and a leading expert in financial institutions, markets, products, and financial company risk management, regulation, and accounting. With 30 years of financial industry experience, he has served as a senior financial company regulator and policy maker, consultant to public and private clients, and testifying expert.

As a testifying expert, Christopher has opined on trading and lending standards, product-specific risks, risk management, accounting, governance, regulatory compliance, macroeconomics, industry custom and practice, valuation, damages, and fiduciary duties. His engagements have covered financial products, including US Treasury and Agency securities, real estate loans, commercial and residential mortgage-backed securities, options and swaps, structured notes, equity securities, municipal and corporate bonds, foreign exchange, bank and broker-dealer loans, mutual funds, and hedge funds.

Christopher previously served as the Federal Reserve Board’s (FRB) Risk Policy and Guidance manager, where he developed and interpreted Federal Reserve and US interagency financial regulations and guidance. He also served in the FRB’s market and liquidity risk section, where he led the FRB’s trading and capital markets risk area. He reviewed the largest banking companies’ ALCO and trading risk committee packages in this capacity. Christopher advised the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Bank officers, and regulated institutions on various market, liquidity, credit, and operational risks. He also served as a member of the Basel Committee's Trading Book Group, participating in developing International risk management and capital standards for financial institutions across the globe.

Before his FRB positions, Christopher served as a financial company examiner for the Federal Reserve System and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In this capacity, he spent over a decade evaluating banks. He affiliated financial company activities, including proprietary and customer trading, securitization, treasury operations, loan underwriting and risk rating, credit portfolio management, new product origination, and funding-interest rate risk management processes. His senior examination roles included Lead Capital Markets examiner over Bank of America Corporation and Shared National Credit team leader. He also led Federal Reserve investigations of domestic and international frauds.

Starting in 2007, Christopher was heavily involved in the FRB’s response to the financial crisis, reporting directly to Chairman Bernanke and other FRB Governors and Reserve Bank Presidents. He worked on various risk and regulatory issues, led targeted reviews of problem institutions, and assisted in developing special FRB actions to reduce market turmoil and economic damage. After leaving the FRB, he assisted the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) in its financial crisis investigation.

Christopher holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in finance and a BBA from the University of Miami with a major in finance. He is also a FINRA-certified regulatory and compliance professional (CRCP).