Cornell College of Business Annual Washington, D.C. Predictions Reception

Cliff Rossi, MS '83, PhD '86

Dr. Rossi is Professor-of-the-Practice and Executive-in-Residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He also is Academic Director of the American Bankers Association Enterprise Risk Management Program. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Rossi had nearly 25 yearsÔÇÖ 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 CitigroupÔÇÖs 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 CitiÔÇÖs 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. He
also held positions as Chief Economist and Chief Analytics Officer at Radian Guaranty.

Previous to these assignments, Dr. Rossi held senior risk management positions at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He started his career during the thrift crisis at the U.S. TreasuryÔÇÖs Office of Domestic Finance and later at the Office of Thrift Supervision working on key policy issues affecting depositories.

Dr. 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. Dr. Rossi is frequently quoted on financial policy issues in major newspapers and has appeared on such programs as Fox News, CanadaÔÇÖs BNN, C-SPANÔÇÖs Washington Journal and CNNÔÇÖs Situation Room.
His practitioner-oriented and graduate textbook, A Risk ProfessionalÔÇÖs Survival Guide: Applied Best Practices in Risk Management for John Wiley & Sons, Inc. was released Fall 2014. He also authored a weekly column, Risk Doctor in the American Banker on risk and regulatory reform issues and had a column in HousingWire, has co-developed several patents for structured finance products and has testified before Congress on various financial regulatory topics. Dr. Rossi serves as an advisor to a number of banks, credit unions, federal regulatory agencies, private equity investment and insurance
companies and hedge funds on banking and regulatory topics and founded Chesapeake Risk Advisors, LLC a financial risk management consulting practice.

He received his PhD from Cornell University.