Who's who

The organisation covers all topics necessary to strengthen consumer rights: consumer law, digitalisation, financial services, energy, food mobility, etc. Ms Buscke represents vzbv on the board of BEUC (the European Consumer Organisation). Between 2013 and 2019, she represented German consumer organisations in the European Consumer Consultative Group.

A German, French and Belgian national, Ms Buscke holds a Master’s degree in Political Science and Roman languages from the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. She is a 2018 fellow of the Transatlantic Digital Debates programme of the Global Public Policy Institute.

Before joining vzbv in 2012, Ms Buscke has worked for different Public Affairs consultancies, an architecture office and completed a traineeship in the European Parliament.

Prior to AARP, Susan worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As the director of the office of consumer policy, she focused on emerging trends and the growing use of technology and data in the provision of consumer financial products and services.

Previously, she directed The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Consumer Banking Project, which advocates for policies that protect American consumers and their money. As the lead on Pew’s efforts to improve the safety and transparency of consumer banking products, she directed a team of researchers who identified current practices and consumer needs to inform and promote policy solutions.

Prior to Pew, Susan was the financial reform campaign director at the Consumer Federation of America, leading media, coalition, public education, and grassroots efforts to promote consumer financial protection in the Dodd-Frank Act. She has more than 20 years of advocacy, communications, research, grassroots and legislative experience working to protect consumers.

He won a commitment from Google for longer-lasting Chromebooks that will save hundreds of thousands of laptops from the landfill. Previously he worked with PIRG as an organizing director where he helped register thousands of voters and won zero waste campaigns to stop plastic pollution.

Previously he worked for Amnesty International’s (AI) International Secretariat, in the International Law and Policy Program, where he was legal and policy advisor. His main responsibilities included providing advice on international human rights and humanitarian law, drafting intervention before human rights courts and bodies and representing the organization before selected bodies of the UN and the Council of Europe. Tomaso is an Italian lawyer and has a Law Degree from the Law College in Ferrara (Italy).

At NACA, Mr. Rheingold has testified before both Houses of Congress on various mortgage lending and consumer finance issues, offered commentary before federal agencies charged with regulating financial service industries and protecting consumers, helped draft amicus briefs on issues of vital concern to consumers before the nation’s highest courts and spoken at consumer-focused events and to national governments across Europe and in southern Africa.

While at NACA, Mr. Rheingold also managed the Institute for Foreclosure Legal Assistance, a joint project of NACA and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). Mr. Rheingold currently serves as Chairman of the Board of CRL, and is a Board Member of the Montgomery County, Maryland Consumer Protection Commission. He is also an active pro-bono attorney for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

Agustín joined BEUC in 2010 and has since held various positions, including Director of the Legal and Economic Department.

Since 2018, he has served as a non-governmental advisor for the European Commission to the International Competition Network and represents BEUC in numerous European and international forums. Additionally, he is a member of ESMA’s Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group. Agustín holds a law degree from the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, an advanced master’s degree in ICT Law from the University of Namur in Belgium, and a PhD in Law from the University of Bremen in Germany.

Robert has written extensively on corporate accountability, access to medicines, corporate influence over the political process, the World Trade Organization and regulation of the financial markets.

He has been published and quoted in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Economist, and Financial Times.

He has worked to lower pharmacy prices for people living with AIDS in the developing world. Robert earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude. He was director of the corporate accountability organisation Essential Action, as well as Editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine that tracks corporate actions worldwide, and public interest attorney at the Center for Study of Responsive Law.