The Inspector General

Michael E. Horowitz

Michael E. Horowitz was appointed Inspector General for the Board and the CFPB effective June 30, 2025. He leads the OIG’s more than 150 person staff in promoting economy, efficiency, and effectiveness and preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse in the Board’s and the CFPB’s programs and operations.

Mr. Horowitz also serves as Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a position he has held since April 2020. Comprising 22 federal inspectors general, the committee was created by Congress to oversee the more than $5 trillion in federal pandemic-related emergency spending.

Before joining the OIG, Mr. Horowitz was Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for 13 years following his confirmation by the United States Senate in 2012. He also served as chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency from 2015 to 2020.

Mr. Horowitz worked from 2002 to 2012 as a partner at the law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he focused his practice on white collar defense, internal investigations, and regulatory compliance. During this time, he was confirmed by the Senate in 2003 to serve a 6-year term as Commissioner on the United States Sentencing Commission. He also was a board member of the Ethics Resource Center and the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics.

Before his time in private practice, Mr. Horowitz worked in DOJ from 1991 to 2002. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1991 to 1999, where he was the Chief of the Public Corruption Unit and a Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. In 1995, he was awarded the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, DOJ’s second highest award, for his work on a complex police corruption investigation. From 1999 to 2002, he worked in the DOJ Criminal Division at Main Justice in Washington, DC, first as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and then as Chief of Staff. Mr. Horowitz began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge John G. Davies of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and as an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton.

Mr. Horowitz earned his juris doctor, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and his bachelor of arts, summa cum laude, from Brandeis University with high honors in economics.