Dennis M. Kelleher is Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Better Markets, a Washington DC-based nonprofit established to make the economy, finance and government serve society, fight injustice and inequality, and promote economic, social, and racial justice. Since Better Markets was founded in 2010, he has participated in more than 400 rulemakings and 25 legal cases, testified before Congress more than 10 times, been quoted more than 3,000 times, and done more than 150 live TV appearances. He also served as a member of the Biden-Harris Transition team and, from October 2020 through January 2021, on the Federal Reserve, Banking and Securities (FBS) Agency Review Team and worked with the Treasury Department and Department of Justice teams.
Prior to Better Markets, Mr. Kelleher served for almost eight years in three senior staff positions in the United States Senate, starting as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s General Counsel and Deputy Staff Director on what is now the HELP Committee and concluding his service in 2010 as Chief Counsel and Senior Leadership Advisor to the Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a member of Senate leadership. Earlier in his career, Mr. Kelleher was a partner with the international law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, where he had an extensive and broad-ranging U.S. and European practice specializing in crisis management and complex corporate matters that focused on financial markets.
In April 2024, Washingtonian Magazine named him one of “Washington’s most influential people” in banking and finance for the fourth year in a row, saying he was one of the experts “who shape the laws that govern the country and ultimately affect the course of history.” The New York Times profiled Mr. Kelleher in “Facing Down the Bankers,” referring to him as “one of the most powerful lobbyists on financial reform,” and he was featured in the award-winning Frontline documentary “Money, Power and Wall Street,” on PBS’s “Braking the Banks,” in the HBO Max series “Gaming Wall Street” and the Netflix series “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga,” as well as in Steven Brill’s best-selling book “Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fall—and Those Fighting to Reverse It” and Jerry Epstein’s book “Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance For The Rest of Us.”
Having grown up in Worcester, Massachusetts, Dennis enlisted in the Air Force while in high school and served four years on active duty as a crash/rescue firefighter/medic, which preceded his graduation with highest honors, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University and cum laude from Harvard Law School. Over the years, Dennis’ charitable work has focused on women and children in need as well as the mentally challenged, both institutional and residential community based.