Elizabeth Warren to Lead Consumer Protection Bureau, ABC Reports

Elizabeth Warren will be named to a special White House advisory position reporting to both the president and the Treasury Department as she gets the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau off the ground, ABC News reported late Wednesday.

President Barack Obama will announce this week that Warren, the Harvard Law School professor known for her plain-speaking manner, will be the regulator in charge of the bureau, an agency she first proposed.

Warren is currently head of the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Appointing Warren to an advisory role to both the president and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would allow the president to bypass a Senate confirmation process that could prove lengthy and contentious, ABC said.

Many on the left consider Warren a strong voice for accountability and transparency in the financial sector. Officials on Wall Street worry she'll be too anti-business.

The Wall Street reform bill that went into effect in July gives the Treasury Department the authority to create the Consumer Protection Bureau. The White House has said it will take less than 18 months from the bill's passage to get the new agency up and running, ABC said.