NLJ: When you joined the FTC in 1991, did you ever think that you would stay for 26 years?
Jessica Rich: Never. Never at all. In fact, had this agency not been the amazing place that it is, and it’s just a wonderful place to work, I obviously would not have stayed. I did not think of myself as somebody who would stay at the same agency that long. One wonderful thing about this agency is the variety of the work we do. I quickly moved into the privacy area and really launched the privacy program, which was not even on the radar in 1991 when I joined. The internet hadn’t even become a well-known commercial medium.
What do you remember as being your priorities when you first took the reins of the consumer protection bureau, and to what extent have you fulfilled those goals?
One of my leading priorities was really focusing on the growing tech marketplace and making sure we could keep pace with technological developments not just in the privacy area but in all areas across our program. When I had been the head of the financial practices division, I launched our fintech work, where we looked at mobile payments and new forms of payments using technology. I was very focused on making sure that we were policing the tech marketplace just as we were looking at other marketplaces and that our attorneys had the know-how and the tools to investigate and capture evidence in that marketplace.
