Chrissa Pagitsas, Founder and Principal of Pagitsas Advisory Services, is a global expert on environmental, social, governance (ESG), climate risk, green and social Bonds, and their intersection with the financial services, commercial real estate and residential housing industries. Ms. Pagitsas is the founder and former Head of ESG and the Green Financing Business at Fannie Mae as well as the author of “Chief Sustainability Officers At Work: How CSOs Build Successful Sustainability and ESG Strategies,” an Amazon #1 best seller that profiles the strategies of twenty CSOs from a diverse range of Fortune 500 companies.

Ms. Pagitsas is responsible for market-transforming innovations in the financial services industry, including the green mortgage-backed security and the development of environmental impact disclosure for individual green bonds. Ms. Pagitsas created and implemented Fannie Mae’s enterprise strategy to become a leading ESG financial services company that actively engages on climate risk, racial inequity in the housing industry, and affordable housing issues across Fannie Mae’s $3 trillion Single-Family and Multifamily business lines. She led efforts to issue the Multifamily business’ first $321 million Social Bond and the Single-Family business’ first $100 million in Green Bonds after first growing the Multifamily Green Bond business to over $50 billion. Ms. Pagitsas engaged with the Board on the enterprise ESG strategy while elevating Fannie Mae’s ESG standing through expanded 10K reporting and public disclosure of key issues to ESG rating agencies. Ms. Pagitsas has extensive experience developing global public-private partnerships and engaging with global fixed-income investors.

Ms. Pagitsas has advised key international and domestic ESG influencing bodies, including NASDAQ, Structured Finance Association, the International Capital Markets Association, Urban Land Institute, and the US Green Building Council. She holds an MBA from the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia and a BA from Johns Hopkins University.