Dr. Clifford Rossi is an Executive-in-Residence and Professor of the Practice at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. Prior to entering academia, Rossi had nearly 25 years’ experience in banking and government, having held senior executive roles in risk management at several of the largest financial services companies.

His most recent position was Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer for Citigroup’s Consumer Lending Group where he was responsible for overseeing the risk of a $300+B global portfolio of mortgage, home equity, student loans and auto loans with 700 employees under his direction. While there he was intimately involved in Citi’s TARP and stress test activities. He also served as Chief Credit Officer at Washington Mutual (WaMu) and as Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer at Countrywide Bank.

Previous to these assignments, Rossi held senior risk management positions at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He started his career during the thrift crisis at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Domestic Finance and later at the Office of Thrift Supervision working on key policy issues affecting depositories. Rossi was also an adjunct professor in the Finance Department at the Robert H. Smith School of Business for eight years and has numerous academic and nonacademic articles on banking industry topics. Rossi is frequently quoted on financial policy issues in major newspapers and has appeared on such programs as C-SPAN’s Washington Journal and CNN’s Situation Room. He is currently writing a book, Fundamentals of Risk Management for John Wiley & Sons, Inc. His policy and research interests include GSE reform, housing finance reform , bank capital issues and implications of Dodd-Frank on banking.

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Risk Decision-Making: Where Models and Cognitive Bias Collide

Risk decisions often falter due to cognitive biases, underdeveloped decision-making processes, and overreliance on models. Clifford Rossi argues that robust frameworks and balanced decision structures are essential to navigate uncertainty effectively and mitigate poor risk outcomes.
21-Nov-2024 11:45:51 AM EST

Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium Rolls Out New Mortgage Risk Indexes

A UMD-Smith effort led by Clifford Rossi has produced a pair of mortgage credit risk indexes to guide lenders, servicers, credit investors, regulators and other market participants.
31-Oct-2024 02:40:28 PM EDT

How to Solve the US Homeowners Insurance Crisis

Clifford Rossi, formerly a senior risk executive for the likes of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup and Washington Mutual, proposes a Federal Natural Hazard Insurance Corporation – a private-public approach to providing homeowners insurance across all natural hazards and states that would address myriad failures in today’s insurance market.
17-Jul-2024 02:05:58 PM EDT

Commercial Real Estate Risk: Remote Work is Just Part of the Picture, says UMD Smith Expert

Risk management expert Clifford Rossi gives context, with risk-response insights, on commercial real estate’s perceived demise.
07-Dec-2023 09:30:36 AM EST

Op-ed: The Case for Enterprise Risk Management in Higher Education

Colleges and universities are not immune to major risk events. The complexity of institutions of higher education and the diversity of risks they face requires academic administrations to develop enterprise risk management (ERM) functions and frameworks.
16-Nov-2023 12:05:01 PM EST

Webinar: Risk, Climate Experts to Discuss Extreme Weather Events in 2023

Experts representing NOAA and the University of Maryland will discuss recent severe climate events and implications for communities, governments and businesses.
18-Sep-2023 12:05:40 PM EDT

New Analysis Examines Hurricane Risk Implications for Low-to-Moderate-Income Mortgage Borrowers

Study led by risk management expert Clifford Rossi for UMD’s Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium assesses hurricane risk across the United States and focuses on economically vulnerable mortgage borrowers in Florida.
31-Aug-2023 03:35:19 PM EDT

Enterprise Risk Consortium Forthcoming from UMD Smith

Risk management expert Clifford Rossi to lead initiative targeting risk practitioners in response to evolving climate change events and recent bank failures.
01-Jun-2023 01:40:38 PM EDT

FHFA’s Changes to Mortgage Fees Increases Risk in the Housing Finance System

On May 1, 2023, a set of new, loan-level price adjustment (LLPA) grids for mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mandated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will go into effect. FHFA’s director stated that the rationale for these changes is “to increase pricing support for purchase borrowers limited by income or by wealth.​”
25-Apr-2023 04:45:52 PM EDT

Webinar: FHA Chief Risk Officer on ‘Balancing the Three Lines of Defense’ in Organizations

FHA Chief Risk Officer Mia Pittman will discuss "risk culture, clarity in roles and responsibilities, and distinctions between positional and personal power to the 3LoD model."
29-Mar-2023 10:30:01 AM EDT

Why Nonbank Mortgage Companies Bear Close Watching Amid Recent Bank Failures

In the wake of the SVB and Signature Bank collapses, keep an eye on a nonbank mortgage industry that’s prone to excessive risk taking, which at some point will manifest into poor loan‐manufacturing quality resulting in extraordinary losses and another industry shakeout, writes risk management expert Clifford Rossi.
19-Mar-2023 12:05:02 PM EDT

Op-ed: Silicon Valley Bank's Failure in Risk Management

What brought SVB down? From a risk management perspective, it made several blunders. The first was in placing large bets on interest rates. Clifford Rossi, who had a front row seat at WaMu’s largest bank failure in U.S. history, gives expansive analysis.
13-Mar-2023 07:05:08 AM EDT

UMD Smith to Add MS Climate Finance Track

Students in Master of Finance and Master of Quantitative Finance programs at the University of Maryland will have access to new courses on climate modeling, analytics tools to assess climate change and more.
17-Feb-2023 03:00:17 PM EST

Risk Lessons from FTX

UMD Smith professor Clifford Rossi, who saw the subprime meltdown from the inside of Citi, WaMu and Countrywide leading to the 2008 financial crisis, dissects the FTX collapse from a risk management perspective.
08-Dec-2022 01:40:04 PM EST

US Housing: Smith Expert Breaks Down the Gloomy Forecast

Clouds are on the horizon for U.S. housing, says UMD Smith’s Clifford Rossi. He examines key variables to determine whether “we’re looking at a Cat 5 hurricane or merely a steady rain.” He says anticipate the latter.
22-Nov-2022 03:05:53 PM EST

Fed Stress Test’s Non-Transparency: Why it Hampers Banks

Maryland Smith risk expert Clifford Rossi explains the extent to which banks are hampered by not getting to see the Federal Reserve’s stress test model and how this can affect the economy.
18-Jul-2022 03:10:43 PM EDT

‘Risk Leadership in 2022’ Webinar with Fannie Mae, Maryland Smith Experts

Risk Leadership Series webinar on Feb. 17 will explore how CROs and Board Risk Committees work together in grappling with risk including that associated with ESG and DEI.
07-Feb-2022 03:15:25 PM EST

Webinar: A Scientist's Take on Climate Models and Risk Management Applications

In the week following COP26, University of Maryland experts Tim Canty (Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science) and Clifford Rossi (Center for Financial Policy) will give insights on the latest IPCC climate change report and its implications for risk managers.
08-Nov-2021 08:55:36 AM EST

Finance Themes to Watch for During COP26

Having held senior executive roles in risk management at several of the largest financial services companies, Maryland Smith professor Clifford Rossi examines climate change implications for finance and risk management ahead of COP26.
21-Oct-2021 02:45:45 PM EDT

New ‘Federal Risk Academy’ Certificate Program to Launch from Maryland Smith’s Center for Financial Policy

Maryland Smith and Deloitte will deliver a certificate program covering risk management for federal employees, in live virtual sessions between Jan. 11 and Feb. 1, 2022.
28-Sep-2021 12:35:07 PM EDT

UMD Experts to Explore Climate Change Policy Implications for Financial Risk Managers

Experts Clifford Rossi and Leon Clarke at the University of Maryland lead a discussion on “Cracking the Code on Climate Change Economic Scenarios: Issues in Translating Physical to Financial Risks.”
08-Feb-2021 08:55:53 AM EST

First-of-its-kind Collateral Risk Education Series Launches Sept. 14

Clifford Rossi, formerly a risk executive for the likes of Citi and Countrywide, directs an online series at the intersections of mortgage collateral valuation and risk management. Vigilance against deficiency in this area, he says, “is particularly critical as markets are supply constrained and getting the appraisal right is essential.”
12-Aug-2020 09:00:22 AM EDT

Atlantic Hurricane Season and Mortgage Default Risk

Maryland Smith finance professor and former risk executive Clifford Rossi’s new study examines the future implications of a predicted increase in hurricane activity for the likes of borrowers and mortgage credit investors.
10-Jul-2020 08:40:14 AM EDT

"When it comes to these episodic, fat-tail risk types of outcomes – like a pandemic or a financial crisis – those conditions remain outside of the range of what our models can assess accurately."

- https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/496384-coronavirus-is-a-problem-data-models-cannot-comprehend

"The nature of that data is so proprietary and so personal, and in many ways, so intrusive, I would say that at the very least it needs to have a heightened level of regulation on it, at least as much as what the banks have."

- https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/how-equifax-hack-could-change-everything

Homeowners should calculate the difference between their current note rate, compared to the prevailing market rate. “The bigger the difference, the more ‘in-the-money’ you are, and the bigger monthly savings you are likely to see.”

- https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty-research/smithbraintrust/insights/it-time-refinance-your-house

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