Scott Parsons
Managing Partner
Parsons is a Founding Partner and Managing Partner of Delta Strategy Group. Parsons moved to Washington, DC, in 1997 to work for newly-elected Congressman Chip Pickering from Mississippi. Parsons was the lead staff member for all agricultural and agricultural-related issues. In that role, he wrote the first bill introduced by Mr. Pickering, a bill that was eventually passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed into law by the President of the United States.
Parsons was promoted to Legislative Director. After serving Mr. Pickering for two years, Parsons was hired as the Policy Advisor to newly-appointed Commissioner James E. Newsome at the CFTC.
Two years later, when Commissioner Newsome was named Chairman of the CFTC Parsons was named Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the Commission. At 27 years of age, he became the youngest person to carry the Chief of Staff title at the CFTC and the first COO in the agency’s history.
As Chief of Staff and COO, Parsons was responsible for managing the Commission’s daily operations, overseeing a staff of 500 located in five offices across the country, administering the agency’s budget of roughly $100 million, crafting the Commission’s policy objectives and communicating those objectives to all interested parties, including the regulated industry, the Congress, and other regulatory bodies around the world.
Parsons was also the CFTC staff representative to the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which is principally comprised of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Chairman of the SEC, and the Chairman of the CFTC.
After six years of CFTC service, Parsons left the federal government to become Executive Vice President at the MFA, a Washington-based trade association representing the interests of hedge funds/hedge fund managers, including Commodity Pool Operators and Commodity Trading Advisors. Parsons’ primary focus at MFA was to create a strategic plan for growing the association’s staff and level of service to its members, as well as to raise the profile in Washington and the overall membership of the group. All of these were accomplished during his tenure.
In July of 2006, Parsons left MFA to form his own government affairs company, Parsons Strategies. With the addition of Jim Newsome, former NYMEX CEO and CFTC Chairman, in early 2010 Delta Strategy Group was formed.