Fannie Mae CIO resigns

The government takeover of mortgage giant Fannie Mae has resulted in many casualties, including its CIO. Rahul Merchant, who also was an executive vice president at Fannie Mae, was one of four executives who resigned last week. He joined Fannie Mae in 2006 from Merrill Lynch & Co, where he served as head of global business technology. Merrill Lynch, facing its own severe final troubles, was swallowed up by Bank America last week.

As CIO, Merchant had management responsibility for more than one-third of the company's total workforce of about 6,000 people. The technology and operations divisions will now report to Michael Williams, the chief operating officer. The changes come two weeks after Fannie Mae and its competitor, Freddie Mac, were taken over by the government and placed under conservatorship.

As part of the plan, the government pledged to inject up to $100 billion of taxpayer money into each of the companies to prevent insolvency. Last winter, as problems at Fannie Mae were apparently mounting, Merchant said at a conference that IT organizations will need to focus on "improving credit risk management by providing more precise and timely business information, including early warning reports and improved credit loss metrics." He also said that default and foreclosure rates "demand better decision models."

For more on Merchant and Fannie Mae:
- check out this Computerworld.com article