View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2016/02/02/397153.htm

N.Y. Gov. Announces 3 Appointments to Department of Financial Services

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has announced three appointments to the state Department of Financial Services.

These appointments follow Cuomo’s recent nomination of Maria Vullo to serve as the superintendent of DFS.

Matthew L. Levine has been appointed executive deputy superintendent for Enforcement. In this role he will guide the Department’s enforcement actions to ensure that regulated parties are held accountable for unlawful business practices, coordinating with other senior staff and law enforcement agencies under the direction of the superintendent.

Levine is a former federal prosecutor and trial lawyer with significant experience in matters involving the financial markets and health care fraud. He has also represented clients in private practice, most recently as the founding principal of his own law firm in New York City.

For nearly a decade, Levine served as an an assistant U.S. attorney, first in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and later in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

Richard A. Loconte has been appointed executive deputy superintendent for Communications and Strategy at DFS. Loconte brings with him more than 20 years of experience in communications and public policy.

Since 2008, he was the deputy head of Government Affairs and associate general counsel at the American International Group. There, he represented AIG before regulatory agencies and other government bodies on legislative and regulatory issues related to the insurance industry and the broader financial services sector, and was instrumental in reestablishing the company’s federal government affairs office in Washington, D.C.

From 2005 – 2008, Loconte was deputy executive director for the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), where he oversaw the organization’s communications, administrative functions, and legal matters.

Jennifer L. Smith has been appointed special assistant to the superintendent at DFS. Most recently, Smith was an attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. While at Skadden, she also served as assistant counsel to the Commission on Judicial Nomination and has handled multiple pro bono matters.

Prior to her time at Skadden, she was a trial attorney for Bolan Jahnsen Dacey, and Greenberg Traurig, where she litigated civil matters.