Team

Christopher E. Donald was sworn-in as the Executive Director/CEO of the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) in March 2021. Mr. Donald served the Agency as the Interim and Acting Executive Director/CEO from January 2020-March 2021. He is responsible for the overall supervision, coordination, and strategic direction of the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency. Mr. Donald joined the Agency in October 2016 as the Senior Vice President of Multifamily Lending and Neighborhood Investments where he served as part of DCHFA’s senior management team. His primary responsibility was to manage the day-to-day operations of the Multifamily Lending and Neighborhood Investments (formerly Public Finance) department and assist the Executive Director & CEO with the development of multifamily programs, products, polices and strategic planning.

Mr. Donald has over 15 years of experience in real estate finance, community building, development, land entitlement and construction. He’s entitled over 1MM square feet of mixed-income, transit-oriented, amenity-rich housing. Mr. Donald specializes in acquisitions, entitlement, community visioning and deal structuring. He has completed over $1 billion in real estate financing over the course of his career and renovated over 1,000 multifamily units and entitled and underwritten almost 3,500 multifamily units throughout Northern Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Mr. Donald has also acquired and programmed commercial space for small local businesses and retailers.

As the Director of Development at the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH), Mr. Donald underwrote and structured $60MM in Low Income Housing Tax Credit transactions. Over the last several years he has provided underwriting services to the Office of State Superintendent for Education for the District of Columbia and financed over $300 million in improvements for public charter schools using New Markets Tax Credits, tax exempt bonds and other tools. Mr. Donald began his career in finance at Lehman Brothers in the Municipal Finance Group and underwrote $200MM in revenue bonds for the District of Columbia.

Prior to his tenure at DCHFA, Mr. Donald served as the Principal and Co-Founder of The Leidesdorff Group. The Leidesdorff Group (TLG) is a diversified real estate advisory firm focused on the regeneration of urban communities within the Mid-Atlantic region. As a principal of TLG, Mr. Donald focused on distressed and disinvested urban communities. Mr. Donald serves as the secretary on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies (NALHFA) and DCHFA. From 2018-2020 he served on the boards of the African American Real Estate Professionals of D.C. and the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers (HAND) boards. Mr. Donald is a member of the Urban Land Institute. He is a graduate of Stanford University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.

Steve Clinton joined the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) in January 2020.  He serves as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mr. Clinton  is a Chartered Financial Analyst with over 30 years of experience in the U.S. housing finance and policy sector.

Recently, Mr. Clinton was a Senior Housing Policy Advisor for the U.S.  Department of the Treasury  where he contributed to the Housing Reform Plan released in September 2019 that was pursuant to the Presidential memo of March 2019 related to reform of U.S. Housing Finance (also known as Government Sponsored Enterprise reform). Additional U.S. Treasury assignments held by Mr. Clinton included a role as an advisor to the FISCAL Bureau of the Office of Domestic Finance of the U.S. Treasury Department.  At the FISCAL Bureau, Mr. Clinton focused on strategic planning to include the processes, operations and technology associated with the multi-trillion-dollar U.S. Debt issuance market.   He also spent time as a Senior Advisor to the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Capital Access focused on the SBA’s 40B secondary market program.  In all of Mr. Clinton’s assignments in the last two years as a senior advisor in the U.S. Government, he was valued for his vast expertise in financial markets, asset backed securitizations, and overall familiarity with the U.S. housing and fixed income Market.

Prior to joining the U.S. Treasury Department, Mr. Clinton spent 25 years at Freddie Mac leaving in 2017 as a Senior Vice President.  While at Freddie Mac, he had the unique experience of working in both the front (capital markets/finance) and back offices (operations, technology). This diverse housing finance market experience included roles ranging from the Senior Vice President of Single-Family Operations to Director of Single-Family Mortgage Credit Pricing to bond trader for the broker dealer desk of Freddie Mac.  Mr. Clinton has managed teams as large as 600 and been a key participant in multi-billion-dollar housing related securitization transactions.  This range of experience in financial transactions, operations and leadership led him to the role of Senior Vice President of Conservatorship for Freddie Mac in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crises.  In that role, he worked with the primary regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Congress, Presidential administrative officials, trade associations, and industry experts on the complex discussions regarding reforming Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as other conservatorship priorities.   Included in his role as SVP of Conservatorship, Mr. Clinton had an executive role in the multi-year development of the Common Securitization Platform and the formation of the Freddie Mac /Fannie Mae joint venture called the Common Securitization Solutions which now performs the issuance and bond administration functions for the two agencies’ multi-trillion dollar mortgage backed securities.

Through his experience at Freddie Mac, the U.S. Treasury Department and as a direct primary market mortgage lender earlier in his career, Mr. Clinton is an expert in financial markets, housing policy and housing finance.

Mr. Clinton earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the College of William and Mary.

Michael Hentrel has served as the General Counsel for the District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency since 2018.  Mr. Hentrel, a 1992 graduate of Howard University School of Law, previously served as Counsel for the Federal Deposit Corporation (FDIC) where he provided advice, counsel and transactional support regarding the management and disposition of $25 Billion in assets jointly owned by FDIC and private investors. Previously, Mr. Hentrel performed a similar role as Associate General Counsel at Fannie Mae.  During his career, Mr. Hentrel has also been Deputy General Counsel of the National Capitol Revitalization Corporation and an associate at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.  He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Maryland and is a member of numerous professional and legal organizations.

Mr. Hentrel is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in History and holds a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Howard University School of Law.

Jeff Cooper joined DCHFA in 2017 and brings 20 years of experience in asset management, acquisitions, risk management and real estate investment strategy. As Senior Vice President of Portfolio and Asset Management (PAM), Mr. Cooper is responsible for managing a team of real estate professionals in asset management, construction management and compliance. Jeff’s portfolio experiences total well over $6 billion, with a default ratio of less than .25%.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Cooper served as the Vice President, PAM at DCHFA. Before joining the Agency, he served as Chief of Asset Management for Howard County Housing Commission (HCHC), where he was instrumental in acquisitions, increasing cashflow across the HCHC portfolio, improving asset sustainability and played a key role in negotiating favorable renovation contracts. Mr. Cooper also served as Vice President for Wachovia Multifamily Cap., Inc. where he managed Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac secured assets across the U.S. He received special recognition from both GSE’s for risk management. Mr. Cooper has a successful track record in mitigating and managing various levels of risk. While at Wachovia, he was instrumental in new business, client retention and managing a $2 billion multifamily portfolio.

Career experiences include multifamily/residential management, various phases of mortgage banking/servicing, acquisition and construction monitoring/management and building strong partnerships with various property management firms for the purpose of asset preservation and improving cashflow. Mr. Cooper is most proud of working with smart people throughout his career and playing a role in providing housing.

Mr. Cooper is a member of the Board of Directors of the African American Real Estate Professionals of D.C. and is an active member of Urban Land Institute.  He has earned certifications from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) in multifamily real estate.  Mr. Cooper holds a degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Management from Elizabeth City State University.

Wendi Redfern-Curtis, has over 20 years of transformational community development, affordable housing development, and organizational change management experience.

Prior to joining DCHFA, Mrs. Redfern-Curtis was Director of Grants Administration for Baltimore City’s Department Housing & Community Development.  In this capacity she was responsible for leading the Departments 3-million-dollar Community Catalyst Grant Program and 25-million-dollar Affordable Housing Trust Fund Teams.

Mrs. Redfern-Curtis also served as Chief Operating Officer for ReBUILD Metro Inc., (formerly TRF Development Partners, Inc.) overseeing the organizations daily operations, including real estate development, construction, property management, sales divisions. While at ReBUILD Metro, she restructured and brought to scale the organizations Path to Own Program.  This initiative worked to transition ReBUILD Metro rental residents to homeowners by providing housing counseling, financial counseling, and other wealth building resources to help residents reach their goals of homeownership.

Prior to joining ReBUILD, Mrs. Redfern-Curtis held the positions of Deputy Commissioner & Assistant Commissioner for Land Resources at Baltimore City’s DHCD, where she was responsible for leading property acquisition, disposition, and asset management efforts on behalf of the City of Baltimore.

Mrs. Redfern-Curtis also played a vital role in developing and implementing the City’s Vacants to Value Initiative to address blighted, vacant, and abandoned property in Baltimore. From 2008-2011, Mrs. Redfern-Curtis served as Director of Permits, Licensing, and Registration at the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development, where she oversaw the generation and collection of $12 million in annual revenue, digitized permitting and registrations systems and streamlined the One Stop Permit Shop.

Mrs. Redfern-Curtis received her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law with a concentration in Real Estate Development.