Career moves

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.

Freddie Mac is promoting Executive Vice President David Brickman to president and will consider him among possible candidates to be the agency's next CEO after Don Layton retires next year.

Weilamann was previously managing director and head of U.S. ABS at the credit rating agency; he assumes his new role as Luis Reyna returns to academia.

Jeff Weinstein and Patrick Lampe join from the Chicago office of Sidley Austin; Morgan Lewis partner Philip Russell is relocating from the firm’s New York office.

Robert Broeksmit, a career mortgage industry executive, will succeed David Stevens as the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The former Kirkland & Ellis partner will remain in Chicago, where he has performed work for clients in automotive finance, technology, banking and marketplace lending.