Edward P. "Ed" O'Keefe

Ed O’Keefe advises and represents financial institutions. From strategy to tactics and logistics, Ed’s experience includes investigations, litigation, regulatory compliance, governance, cybersecurity, compensation, and risk management. He also advises on law department management, including effective legal engagement with regulators and control functions.

Ed is the former Global General Counsel of Bank of America Corporation. Having also headed or served as a senior executive with Bank of America's compliance, technology, human resources, and operations functions, Ed’s broad experience includes all aspects of investigations, litigation, regulatory compliance, governance, cybersecurity, compensation, and risk management. His regulatory compliance practice includes working with clients with respect to BSA/AML, anti-bribery/anti-corruption, resolution planning, stress testing, and responding to regulatory inquiries.

Managing significant and complex bank issues, Ed’s experience ranges from supervisory issues to consent orders. He also understands bank operations, including emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, on which he has addressed at international and national industry conferences. As the chair of the Clearing House Association, the industry association of the largest banks, Ed supported and approved the creation of the Real Time Payments system.

Ed has represented financial institutions before the U.S. Congress and the U.K. financial regulatory authorities, global agencies and courts, as well as the Federal Reserve, the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and multiple state attorneys general.

Ed is recognized for his legal and public service, including his service on the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Advisory Board, Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy Center, Board Chair of the United Way of Central Carolinas, and President of Council for Children’s Rights Board. Ed is a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and also serves on the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s North Carolina Advisory Committee, and has served on the Best Lawyers’ Board of Advisors. He regularly speaks and publishes on bank regulatory issues, cybersecurity, and legal risk management. He is a co-author of the Regulatory Investigative Chapter in the treatise, Successful Partnering Between Inside and Outside Counsel, published by Thomson Reuters and the Association of Corporate Counsel.