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As head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, David H. Stevens spent the last year warning that excessive and ill-considered regulation could drag down the mortgage market. As the new head of SunTrust Mortgage, he'll have to face that regulation head-on.
June 5 -
David Stevens, the president and chief executive officer of the Mortgage Bankers Association, will leave the trade group at the end of June to become president of SunTrust Mortgage.
May 30 -
Even as tight ties between regulators and the regulated are blamed for the housing collapse, former FHA chief David Stevens shows the Washington revolving door is in full swing.
August 1
In a last-minute reversal, David H. Stevens, the president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, will remain at the trade group rather than
It will be his last job change for the immediate future; Stevens, 55, has signed a long-term incentive package to lead the MBA for the next five years. Details of his compensation were not disclosed.
Stevens' change of heart is as much a surprise as was his decision a year ago to join the MBA,
In an interview Sunday afternoon, Stevens said he was persuaded to remain in his current role last week, during an annual MBA chairman's conference in Palm Beach, Fla.
"There was an overwhelming response from MBA members, large and small, and for what it's worth, people were excited about the progress the MBA has made in the past year," Stevens says. "I never would have made the decision to go to SunTrust had I expected this response, and I never expected the negotiations, as it were, to occur a couple of days before I was planning to leave. I underestimated what the impact was."
Stevens was slated to take over SunTrust's mortgage operations on July 16. He says MBA members first raised the possibility of his remaining on June 25, and negotiations continued over the next few days. Once he had decided to remain in his current post, he says he quickly informed senior executives at SunTrust Bank (STI), including CEO Jerome T. Lienhard, who was also at the MBA conference.
Lienhard "saw the pressure, and people came up and talked to him about it," Stevens says. "Obviously they [SunTrust executives] weren't pleased and I knew it would disrupt the excitement and changes going on there, and at the end of the day I made the call."
SunTrust said Monday that its executives and Stevens had "mutually agreed" that he would remain in his post at the MBA.
"We have a strong leadership team in place, and continue to execute our business plan and serve the needs of the clients of SunTrust Mortgage," Lienhard said in a statement.
SunTrust's mortgage operations are still struggling with credit quality issues and repurchase requests, and the Atlanta bank has been trying to reshape the business. Last month, it appointed Peter E. Mahoney as executive vice president of mortgage strategy and Jack Wixted as executive vice president and chief risk officer.
Stevens said last month that he was
As an MBA member, the bank will continue to rely on Stevens and his trade group for representation. He admitted Sunday that the reversal was a surprise even to him, but said he had "the right to change his mind."
Stevens, an articulate and knowledgeable spokesman for the mortgage industry, has been instrumental in adding new MBA members, including real estate investment trusts and lenders that had left the group years before. He also helped energize the trade group, which lost members during the mortgage meltdown and saw its reputation suffer in the aftermath, and helped
"The importance and significance of MBA's voice during this critical time, coupled with Dave's experience and talents, encouraged us to do all we could to retain him," Michael Young, the MBA's chairman, said in a press release scheduled to be published on Monday morning.
Stevens has raised eyebrows before with his career choices. He had been viewed as a driving force at HUD, which oversees the FHA, and was an advisor to the White House on housing policies before he
A series in American Banker last year examined emails suggesting
Stevens says his value to the MBA comes from what he calls his ability to understand and promote the mortgage business to outsiders, "and not have to read from crib notes." He says that mortgage lenders convinced him that those skills were increasingly hard to find, and important to the industry during a period of major reforms.
"When I decided to go to SunTrust, I never expected the reaction I got," Stevens says. "And it helped me realize there is a unique set of skills that requires maneuvering inside Washington, and for better or for worse I've developed unique skills that others haven't. That recognition was thrust upon me. This isn't just about one company, this is about the whole industry, and the fact that the industry felt I play such a unique role in that is flattering, and I can't let them down."
