Career moves

Deputy Director Brian Johnson spent more than two years serving under two separate CFPB directors. He will become a partner at Alston & Bird LLP next month.

Dana Wade would succeed Brian Montgomery, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

With policymakers focused on ending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s conservatorship, their regulator is reorganizing key units and adding staff to position itself for the long term.

The agency has named Thomas G. Ward as the bureau’s assistant director for enforcement. House Democrats have questioned Ward's role as a political appointee in the Trump administration.

The Federal Housing Administration chief has already been serving as the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Sheila Bair, who holds board seats at several other organizations, will sit on Fannie's compensation, corporate governance and risk policy committees.

Robert G. Cameron, a former official at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, will succeed Seth Frotman as the bureau's point person on student lending complaints.

Former Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton has joined the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies as a senior industry fellow focused on reform of the government-sponsored enterprises.

The executives were hired for their focus on loan origination, portfolio management and securitization.

Kristen Donoghue had been one of the agency's few remaining senior enforcement managers hired by former Director Richard Cordray.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has named three senior advisers for policy, economics and communications.

Hugh Frater loses the "interim" title, taking full control of the government-sponsored enterprise as Congress begins debating (again) the future of Fannie as well as Freddie Mac.

David Brickman will take the helm of the mortgage giant at a time of transformation in the mortgage market and housing finance policy.

The secretary of housing and urban development plans to "finish out this term" but wants to return to "the private sector because I think you have just as much influence, maybe more."

Liquidity, products and pricing are the main concerns for the secondary mortgage market in 2019.

The White House said that Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting will serve as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency beginning Jan. 6, after Director Mel Watt’s term ends.

RBC Capital Markets hired Paul Sheldon, founder of the advisory firm S L Capital Strategies, as a managing director in the municipal finance student loan group.

Donald Layton, who has run the mortgage giant since 2012, discussed the busy agenda leading up to his departure and says Freddie can serve as a "technical adviser" in GSE reform talks.

The CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are stepping down because the job they were hired to do — return the GSEs to profitability — is done. But attracting top-flight candidates to lead the mortgage giants into a new phase may not be easy.

Whereas most regulators appointed in the Trump administration are focused on rolling back the post-crisis framework, Nellie Liang helped create it.