History-Making OCC Veteran Julie L. Williams Joins Anchorage Digital Bank Board

This January, we marked the second anniversary of our federal bank charter. It was a moment of pioneering progress for any digital asset bank, and it coincided with our announcement of another milestone for our compliance and bank program: a significant “new phase”, including a reorganization and multiple high-level hiring and staffing moves, as captured in the American Banker story, “'We're leveling up': Anchorage Digital Bank restructures”.

Today, we are proud to announce the appointment of a new member of the Anchorage Digital Bank board of directors: Julie L. Williams, former First Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel and twice Acting Comptroller of the Currency at the OCC.

Adding Williams to our board brings us additional banking industry and regulatory perspectives and experience, enhancing the value that we provide our clients and helping us shape a model for the industry. As an independent board member, she will help to drive Anchorage Digital Bank forward with requisite, highly credible feedback and focus on monitoring accomplishments—precisely the oversight that can strengthen our ongoing efforts to assure our safe and sound and compliant operations.

Williams joins current independent board members including Sarah Elliott and Walter J. Mix III, each of whom offer their own unique and invaluable perspective to Anchorage Digital Bank. Elliott brings many years of operational experience in chief compliance roles and as a former attorney at the OCC, and Mix is a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) and the head of the financial services practice at Berkeley Research Group. Together, our board will help us continue to adapt best practices from their experiences in traditional banking, fintech, and regulation.

“I’m excited to join the Anchorage Digital Bank board to provide support around its regulatory compliance and strategies as its business continues to evolve. Selecting Anchorage Digital Bank as my first non-public company board had everything to do with helping to steer the first OCC-chartered crypto bank in a positive direction forward.”

—Julie Williams, Anchorage Digital Bank Board Member

In her capacity as the OCC’s Chief Counsel and First Senior Deputy Comptroller, Williams stood second in the line of succession to head the regulatory agency for many years. She filled that role twice during her tenure, leading the OCC as Acting Comptroller of the Currency, first from April 1998 through December 1998, and later from October 2004 through August 2005. In doing so, she was the first-ever woman to head the OCC, and remains the only woman to have served in that role to this day. She combined a firm commitment to the supervisory process and safe and sound and compliant bank operations, with openness to innovative and evolving approaches to conducting the business of banking, making her an ideal fit for the board of Anchorage Digital Bank.  

To discuss our safe, regulated solution for digital asset custody, trading, governance, staking, and more, please get in touch.