Alex Zerden

Guest Author

Alex Zerden (@AlexZerden) is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and the founder and principal of Capital Peak Strategies LLC, a FinTech, digital asset, and emerging technologies advisory firm.

As a regulatory lawyer, economic policymaker, and financial diplomat, Alex brings fifteen years of public and private sector experience at the intersection of financial services, national security, and law with a focus on financial regulation, anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), economic sanctions, anti-corruption, financial enforcement and oversight investigations, economic crisis response, and public-private partnerships.

Alex began his career representing U.S. and international victims of terrorism. He has worked across the U.S. government to protect the financial system from abuse and promote economic growth, including at the Treasury Department, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), White House National Economic Council, House of Representatives, and Senate. From 2018-2019, Alex deployed to Afghanistan to lead the Treasury Department office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

Alex has published extensively on issues involving AML/CFT, economic sanctions, anti-corruption, cybersecurity, and FinTech, including with the American Banker, Atlantic Council, Lawfare Blog, Center for American Progress, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Blog, and has been quoted and interviewed in media outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business News, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Alex received his B.A., cum laude, from Tufts University, and his J.D., summa cum laude, from the American University Washington College of Law. He is also a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Term Member and a former CNAS Next Generation National Security Fellow.