Franklin D. Raines became the first African American chief executive of a Fortune 500 corporation when he took charge of Fannie Mae. Born in Seattle on January 14, 1949, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1971, studied politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar and returned to Harvard for the law degree he received in 1976.
His path to that chair ran through government and finance. From 1977 to 1979, he worked in the Carter administration as an associate director for economics and government relations. He joined the investment bank Lazard Freres in 1979, became a general partner there in 1985 and remained until 1991. He then spent five years as Fannie Mae's vice chairman, the mortgage-finance company whose purchases of home loans keep money moving through the housing market.
President Bill Clinton named him director of the Office of Management and Budget in 1996, a post he held until 1998. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget credits him with leading negotiations that produced the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. In January 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as chairman and chief executive, serving until 2004. BlackPast's account records that he increased the company's market share in the mortgage resale business during that period.
