FROM THE FBI TO FINRA: GREG RUPPERT ON SMARTER REGULATION
FROM THE FBI TO FINRA: GREG RUPPERT ON SMARTER REGULATION
September 01, 2026
I’m excited to share today’s episode, because it is a glimpse into the regulator of the future. My guest is Greg Ruppert, FINRA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Regulatory Operations Officer. What struck me most in talking with Greg was not just the sophistication of the work FINRA is doing, but the spirit behind it: the positivity, the vision for change, the embrace of technology, and the deep commitment to breaking down silos and working as one tech-empowered team.
Greg’s own background is perfectly suited to this moment. He spent nearly 18 years at the FBI, including work on securities fraud, threat financing, Enron, and cyber, and later led financial crimes risk work at Charles Schwab. Today at FINRA, he is helping lead a transformation in how the organization approaches regulatory operations, bringing together exams, surveillance, investigations, enforcement, risk monitoring, and vast stores of intelligence into a more unified model.
A major theme of our conversation is FINRA Forward, the organization-wide initiative launched by FINRA CEO Robert Cook to sharpen FINRA’s unique value as a self-regulatory organization. Greg describes it as a practical, enterprise-level push toward greater effectiveness and efficiency. They are modernizing rules, empowering firms’ compliance operations, strengthening the industry’s ability to combat cyber and fraud risks, and making the exam process more transparent and risk-focused. In many ways, FINRA Forward is the umbrella for the future-facing work we discuss throughout the episode.
The result is a picture of where every regulator, everywhere, is probably headed in some form. FINRA is working to move faster, use data better, modernize exams, and get positioned — to use Greg’s phrase — “left of boom,” giving firms actionable intelligence before risks explode into harm. Greg shares a terrific example from the CrowdStrike outage, when FINRA was able to identify affected firms, coordinate quickly, and share warning information about a spear-phishing campaign before the first attack hit.
We also talk, of course, about AI, generative AI, and agentic AI. FINRA is using these tools internally, training its own people on them, and engaging deeply with firms about how they are using them. Greg describes use cases ranging from internal chat tools and complaint analysis to sentiment analysis, surveillance, and recommendation engines that can help prioritize investor harm and market abuse while keeping humans in the loop.
Finally, we dig into financial crime, fraud, cyber threats, crypto, privacy, public-private intelligence sharing, and — crucially — the speed challenge facing regulators. Greg’s message is that regulators cannot afford to treat technology as someone else’s job. They have to be learners. They have to build expertise, listen to the market, create feedback loops, and use intelligence to distinguish what is truly risky from what is merely noisy.
For me, this conversation is an encouraging one. It shows that the future of regulation is not just about better technology. It is about better teamwork, better intelligence, better learning, and a regulatory mindset that is forward-looking, collaborative, and ready to move at the speed of markets.
We have some terrific upcoming episodes in the queue, including conversations with Ariadne Plaitakis of the Gates Foundation, and Dante Disparte of Circle.
I also want to highlight AIR’s Global Design Sprint on Harnessing Gender Data for Inclusive Regulation, which will be running virtually from July 20 to September 4. We are bringing together global experts to move beyond collecting gender-disaggregated data and turn it into practical tools, insights, and action for more inclusive financial regulation.
Greg Ruppert is FINRA’s Chief Regulatory Operations Officer. In this role, he leads FINRA’s Regulatory Operations (RegOps) organization. This newly unified team consists of Member Supervision, a cohesive group of programs that protect investors and safeguard market integrity through surveillance and oversight of member firms and Registered Representatives; Market Oversight, which oversees and regulates trading of exchange-listed, unlisted and fixed income securities for compliance with FINRA rules and the federal securities laws; and Enforcement teams. At the helm of this cross-functional team, Greg leads FINRA’s efforts to strengthen regulatory coordination, expand intelligence sharing, and enhance its processes and technology – protecting investors and upholding market integrity.
Prior to joining FINRA, Greg was a Senior Vice President in Charles Schwab Corporation’s Risk Management department from 2014 to 2020 and was responsible for operational and compliance risk areas across the enterprise. Prior to that, Greg spent 17 years with the U.S. Government. His career as a Special Agent in the FBI included investigator and leadership roles specializing in complex corporate and securities cases, financial crimes, terrorism, and cyber risk.
