New FHFA chief revamps Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac's boards

Newly confirmed FHFA Director Bill Pulte has swiftly reshaped Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's boards, removing several board members and appointing new ones, including himself.

Both boards now list Pulte as chair and FHFA General Counsel Clinton Jones as a member, according to securities filings. Fannie also is adding Christopher Stanley and Michael Stucky to its board. Stanley is a cybersecurity engineer who has worked for Trump ally Elon Musk and has a role within the Department of Government Efficiency, according to Bloomberg. Stucky is a former operating partner at Pulte Capital Partners. He was previously division president at Pulte Homes. 

New members at Freddie include Brandon Hamara, vice president of land acquisition at Tri Pointe Homes; and Ralph "Cody" Kittle, a partner at investment firm RenWave Kore.

The shakeup is in line with a series of moves the Trump administration has been making with the stated aim of streamlining the public sector, including housing reforms that could result in cutting government ties the two influential mortgage buyers have had since Sept. 6., 2008.

Pulte is emerging as one of the most vocal and visible appointees in the Trump administration. As part of the administration's broader push to bring federal employees back to the office, he appeared on Laura Ingraham's Fox News program Monday night, stating that, on average, only 49 of Fannie Mae's 2,900 employees work in the office full-time. He added that Freddie Mac faces a similar issue and vowed, 'We're going to fix it.'"

FHFA pulled eight members off the Fannie Mae board and six from Freddie Mac, according to securities filings. All new board members will remain in place until the next annual election until they resign or FHFA replaces them.

Board committee assignments and reviews of new members related to whether they have transactions or relationships that need to be disclosed under securities filing rules were pending a deadline.

Those removed from Fannie Mae's board of directors

• Amy Alving, former chief technology officer at IT company Leidos
• Christopher Brummer, a law professor at Georgetown University
• Michael Heid, a retired president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
• Simon Johnson, a British-American economist and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management
• Diane Lye, a data science and technology expert who most recently served as chief information officer at Rivian Automotive
• Diane Nordin, a financial services executive and philanthropist who also has served on the Financial Accounting Foundation's board
• Chetlur Ragavan, former executive vice president and chief risk officer at Voya Financial
• Michael Seelig, a former senior executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Those remaining on Fannie Mae's board of directors

• Fannie Mae CEO Priscilla Almodovar
• Renée Lewis Glover, founder and managing member of urban real-estate development firm The Catalyst Group
• Karin Kimbrough, chief economist for LinkedIn
• Manuel "Manolo" Sánchez Rodríguez, a former banker who currently works as an adjunct professor at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business
• Scott D. Stowell, founder, CEO and president of real estate investment firm Capital Thirteen

Departing Freddie Mac board of directors

• Kevin Chavers, a former BlackRock executive who served as the president of Ginnie Mae during the Clinton administration
• Lance Drummond, a retired executive vice president at TD Canada Trust
• Luke Hayden, a consultant who previously held executive posts at BlackRock and PHH Mortgage
• Allan Merrill, a Beazer Homes USA executive
• Jane Prokop, a MasterCard executive who had joined Freddie's board in January
• Roy Swan, head of mission investments at the Ford Foundation

Remaining on Freddie Mac's board

• Freddie Mac CEO Diana Reid
• Mark Bloom, global chief information officer for global insurance brokerage Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.
• Kathleen Casey, senior advisor at financial services consulting firm Patomak Global Partners
• Aleem Gilani, former chief financial officer at SunTrust Banks
• Christopher Herbert, managing director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Grace Huebscher, retired president of Capital One Multifamily Finance