FHFA elevates two leaders to deputy director roles

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced the promotion to deputy director of two of its leaders, who will lead oversight and research divisions.

Anne Marie Pippin steps up to help lead the division of conservatorship, oversight and readiness after most recently serving as an associate director for two offices it oversees. Known for her technology expertise in housing finance, Pippin's career in the public sector also encompasses enterprise risk and climate research.

"With her extensive experience in mortgage finance, innovation, risk management, and corporate governance, Anne Marie's leadership has been exemplary in every way," said FHFA Director Sandra Thompson in a press release. "I look forward to her continued leadership in this role."

Prior to her promotion, Pippin was associate director for the office responsible for governance in addition to the office of strategic initiatives and financial technology, both housed within the division. In that role, she sought to address the rising importance of technology and innovation for housing industry stakeholders, helping shape the FHFA's approach to adoption of new tools. Her role also involved supervision of initiatives surrounding FHFA's conservatorship of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pippin joined the FHFA in 2017, previously serving as a manager and examiner in the division of enterprise regulation, where she supported coverage of governance issues and studied the risk of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the agency and businesses it oversees. In addition to the government-sponsored enterprises, the FHFA regulates the 11 institutions that make up the Federal Home Loan Bank system. 

Before coming to the FHFA, Pippin held several other roles within the federal government, including at the Departments of Energy, Defense and Interior, as well as with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.She also worked on climate risk analysis for the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 2012.

The FHFA also named Anju Vajja deputy director for its division of research and statistics. An economist who previously worked at World Bank before coming to the agency, Vajja had been in the role on an acting basis and serves as a research officer, in charge of data gathering and analysis of housing, real estate and mortgage trends. Vajja leads production of the FHFA's monthly house price reports and updates of various systems and resources while heading the agency's data governance and work surrounding climate and environmental, social and governance coordination. 

"Anju's experience in overseeing the research, analysis, and data governance work of the division of research and statistics, and its production of FHFA's House Price Index, National Mortgage Database, Uniform Appraisal Dataset, is a tremendous asset to DRS and the agency," Thompson noted.

Vajja's past positions at the FHFA include managing economist in the division of bank regulation. She also was associate director within its division of housing missions and goals.

The promotions come as the home finance industry attempts to grapple with some of the regulatory uncertainty and risks brought on by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning over the past several months. 

They also come as the role of the Federal Home Loan bank system is under debate after its involvement in funding some of the failed institutions in the financial industry crisis of one year ago. In a review of the system, Thompson has demanded that the banks come up with plans and programs to help underserved communities.