The Structured Finance Industry Group (SFIG) said in a release today that it hired Falcon Capital Advisors as well as a consultancy run by Kristi Leo to help it attract new members and pursue its legislative agenda.
Started in March, the association so far has 139 members listed on its website.
It was unclear at press time what Leo’s firm is called. Armando Falcon is the CEO of the eponymous consultancy.
Leo will assist members, especially investors, with education and advocacy. “Over her career, Leo has developed extensive relationships with a plethora of investors, issuers, servicers, banks and other market participants,” the SFIG said. She had been a managing director at Deutsche Bank, co-managing U.S. origination and banking in structured finance.
Falcon’s contributions will have more of a regulatory bent and will center on mortgage-related issues. He has a quarter century under his belt working on legislative issues in the financial sphere.
Last February Armando Falcon cut ties with the American Securitization Forum (ASF), which hired him as a senior policy advisor in mid-2010. The SFIG was founded by ASF defectors.
From 1999 to 2005 Falcon served as director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), now the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and therefore oversaw GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
