Patrice Alexander Ficklin is the founding director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Fair Lending & Equal Opportunity, which leads the CFPB’s efforts to ensure fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit.  Her prior experience includes negotiating complex transactions and leading teams engaged in counseling industry and consumer advocate organizations on regulatory compliance, consumer protection, fair lending, fair housing and fair employment.  Patrice mediated employment discrimination claims and arbitrated individual lending discrimination claims made by Black farmers in Pigford v. Glickman, a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  She is a graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School.