Cathleen Mahon is the Executive Director of New York City’s Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) and Assistant Commissioner at the Department of Consumer Affairs. OFE is the first local government initiative in the nation with a mission aimed expressly at helping to educate, empower, and protect those with low incomes so they can build assets and make the most of their financial resources.
Prior to joining the Department, Ms. Mahon worked as a private consultant on issues of financial empowerment and asset building. She directed the Asset Funders Network and worked with high-profile policy and research organizations such as the Aspen Institute in Washington D.C., as well as grassroots community organizations and government agencies including the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (NFCDCU), the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and others. She had served as the Director of Policy and Program Development at the National Federation. Notably, Ms. Mahon has led research teams studying pathways to scale for asset building efforts; developed training programs on designing alternative credit products; and published reports on international micro credit programs, as well as predatory lending prevention strategies.
Ms.
Mahon earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Duke University and a Master’s of City
Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ms. Mahon resides
in Brooklyn.