Michael J. Canning

Principal and Founder

Michael J. Canning is the Principal and Founder of The LXR Group, LLC, a Washington, D.C.–based public policy consultancy specializing in financial services and capital markets regulation. For more than twenty years, he has worked at the intersection of Congress, regulators, industry, and advocacy organizations, helping to shape some of the most consequential financial policy debates of the last two decades.

As Principal of LXR, Mike has represented many of the most influential voices in financial services and consumer protection, including AARP, Broadridge Financial Solutions, the American Association for Justice, the North American Securities Administrators Association, the Consumer Federation of America, the Healthy Markets Association, and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. His work for these clients has focused on advancing policies that promote investor protection, strengthen transparency in capital markets, and foster responsible innovation.

Mike is widely recognized as an expert on private offerings and private markets. He frequently advises clients on policy questions in these areas and presented to the SEC Investor Advisory Committee on these issues in 2023. His work for Americans for Financial Reform involves serving as a subject matter expert on securities markets, digital assets, and market structure. He also advises international clients seeking a sophisticated understanding of U.S. capital markets and financial services policy, with particular emphasis on the policymaking processes of Congress and independent regulatory agencies.

Before founding LXR, Mike spent nearly a decade at the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), where he served as Director of Policy and Government Affairs from 2016 to 2021 and Director of Policy from 2011 to 2016. In this capacity, he was NASAA’s primary liaison to Congress and federal agencies, overseeing all legislative strategy, testimony, and correspondence. He managed the association’s testimony and witness preparation for nearly two dozen Congressional hearings before the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the Senate Special Committee on Aging, among others. He directed NASAA’s advocacy campaigns on issues including retirement security, fiduciary obligations, arbitration reform, corporate finance, digital assets and cryptocurrency, senior investor protection, cybersecurity, and investment adviser oversight. He also represented NASAA on board-level committees covering federal and state legislation, fintech, cybersecurity, and seniors and diminished capacity, and played a key role in developing model state laws on investor protection and financial exploitation.

Earlier in his career, Mike spent nine years working in a variety of roles on Capitol Hill. From 2007 to 2010, he was Senior Policy Advisor to a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, where he played a central role during the 2008–2009 financial crisis and the drafting of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. He drafted legislation establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, developed mortgage lending reforms that were enacted as Title XIV of Dodd-Frank, and advanced systemic risk and foreclosure relief measures. From 2002 to 2005, Mike served as a Legislative Assistant and Budget Associate on the U.S. House Committee on the Budget, gaining deep expertise in fiscal policy, defense, international trade, and the federal budget process.

Mike holds a Master of Public Affairs from Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy, where his capstone project analyzed policy responses to the mortgage foreclosure crisis. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from the College of the Holy Cross.

Mike is a Certified Regulatory and Compliance Professional (CRCP®), a designation awarded by FINRA and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and, since 2022, has served as Senior Congressional Fellow at Americans for Financial Reform.

Mike also holds certificates in National Security Policy from the National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C., and in Artificial Intelligence and Career Empowerment from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Mike lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his two children, Tommy and Lilly.