FHFA Reshapes Fannie Mae Board

The reshaping of the mortgage market’s top-end continued last week, with the Federal Housing Finance Board, acting as conservator for Fannie Mae (FNM), appointing nine new directors to Fannie Mae’s board, bringing the total number of directors to ten at the ailing mortgage finance giant. The appointments include Herb Allison, Jr., 65, recently named president and CEO at Fannie in the wake of the de facto government takeover of the firm, as well as a number of new faces. Three prior board members will remain on the new board, including Dennis Beresford, 70, a professor of accounting at University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business since 1997 and a former chairman at the Financial Accounting Standards Board; Beresford has been on Fannie’s board since 2006. Brenda Gaines, 59, has been on Fannie’s board since 2006, as well; she is the former president and CEO of Diners Club North America, and has a history of public service and housing governance in Chicago during the 1980s. The third and final remaining board member is Frederick “Bart” Harvey III, 59, who has been on Fannie’s board since Aug. 2008; Harvey spent more than a decade leading affordable housing technology specialist Enterprise Community Partners. Beyond Allison, new board members include William Thomas Forrester, 60, who served as Chief Financial Officer at The Progressive Corporation from 1999 until his retirement in March 2007; and Charlynn Goins, 66, who was chairman of the board of directors of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation from June 2004 to October 2008. Also joining the revamped board will be Egbert Perry, 53, a real estate developer and investor; Perry has served since 2002 as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, where his term will expire at the end of this year; David Sidwell, 55, former CFO at Morgan Stanley (MS); and Diana Taylor, 53, former superintendent of banks for the state of New York, from 2003 to 2007. For more information, visit http://www.fanniemae.com. Write to Paul Jackson at [email protected]. Disclosure: The author held no relevant investment positions when this story was published. Indirect holdings may exist via mutual fund investments. HW reporters and writers follow a strict disclosure policy, the first in the mortgage trade.