Arlington, VA—FI Consulting announced today the appointment of top industry experts to its new Advisory Board. The Advisory Board will help FI identify and evaluate new opportunities and provide senior technical leadership on select client projects.
“We feel privileged to have these senior experts on our team,” says Tom Follain, Principal and co-founder. “They have deep industry experience, across domestic and international financial markets, that will help us pursue our strategic firm objectives.”
The new advisory board members are:
- Michael J. Lea, Ph.D.—Dr. Lea is an internationally known authority on housing and mortgage finance. Dr. Lea currently serves as principal of Cardiff Economic Consulting, a firm that analyzes domestic and international mortgage markets and institutions. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Lea served as Executive VP for Global Market Development at Countrywide Financial Corporation, a worldwide provider of housing finance system and institutional development consulting services. From 1991 to 1999, he was President of Cardiff Consulting Services, a specialist in housing finance markets and institutions analysis. From 1987 to 1991, he was Senior VP of Finance and Capital Markets at the Imperial Corporation of America in charge of asset-liability management. Dr. Lea was Chief Economist at Freddie Mac from 1983 to 1987. He served as a staff member for the President's Commission on Housing and was a Brookings Institution economic policy fellow at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1980 and 1981. He taught at Cornell University, San Diego State University, the University of California, San Diego, and the Wharton International Housing Finance Program at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
- G. Mark Loreto—Mr. Loreto has more than 30 years of experience in commercial banking, structured finance, and commercial and residential mortgage markets. Mr. Loreto is a co-founder of Sterling Eagle Mortgage Investment Company, LLC, a firm that specializes in residential mortgage conduit sales, mortgage fulfillment processing, warehouse lending, and technology development for front and back-office systems. He was also a co-founder of Princeton Capital Finance Company and affiliates, a leading asset-based lender active in the government finance receivables and mortgage finance sectors and one of the first national non-bank warehouse lenders for small and mid-sized mortgage banks. Previously, he formed and managed ORIX Realty Corporation, the commercial real estate subsidiary of Japan’s largest finance company. Before joining ORIX, Mr. Loreto was a senior associate of Morgan Stanley Realty Incorporated, practiced corporate and real estate law with the law firms of Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Reid and Priest, and was a commercial bank lending officer of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. He received a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University, an M.B.A. from the Wharton Graduate Division of the University of Pennsylvania, and a J.D. from New York Law School.
- James R. Follain, Ph.D.—Dr. Follain has more than 30 years of experience as a financial economist. His work has focused on measuring and managing the risks of lending and investing in mortgage and housing markets, and the associated public policy and government regulations. Dr. Follain was the Senior VP in the Mortgage Valuation division of Fidelity Hansen Quality where he developed new products to expand Fidelity’s business lines to mortgage valuation. From 2003 to 2004, he served as a Senior Economist at the Monetary and Financial Studies Section of the Research and Statistics Division of the Federal Reserve Board where he worked on mortgage provisions of the Basel II Accord. From 1998 to 2003, he was the Senior Director of Capital Management and Policy at Freddie Mac where he monitored credit risk associated with single-family mortgages. Dr. Follain served as a tenured professor of economics at Syracuse University and the University of Illinois. He was President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association in 1989. He began his career at the Urban Institute and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco studying housing, tax, and deregulation policies. He received a B.A. from the University of San Francisco and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Davis.
FI Consulting is a firm that combines analytical expertise and financial knowledge with an awareness of how to best leverage technology when developing or changing financial models and other complex applications. It provides cost-effective, transparent, thoroughly documented, and scalable solutions, built with a vision of how they will evolve over time to meet client changing needs.
The Advisory Board was launched 10/1/2008.