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Sam Valverde’s mother and her two sisters spent a decade saving to buy a home in New York City. Just before his birth, they achieved that dream and to this day, his mother and aunt still reside in that home. The home has served as a cornerstone of security, community, and continuity for the Valverde family across generations.
Now, as his mother grows older, Valverde finds comfort in knowing that the home represents a financial safety net for her. This sense of financial stability has been crucial, allowing him to pursue a career in public service with the confidence that his family’s financial future is secure.
“All of these cascading effects for my mother, my aunts, for me, and my cousins stem from one decision made decades ago to buy a home,” Valverde explains. “The transformational impact of first-time homeownership isn’t just academic for me. I’ve lived it. It’s my life.”
Today, Valverde is in a unique position to share this powerful message. After holding senior roles at the US Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency, Valverde joined Ginnie Mae in March 2022 as its first Latino executive. He initially served as Ginnie Mae’s chief operating officer before stepping into the role of principal executive vice president in January 2023. In May 2024, Valverde became the acting president.
Ginnie Mae—or the Government National Mortgage Association—is the government-owned corporation within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, dedicated to providing access to affordable mortgages nationwide, with a special focus on historically underserved groups. By offering investors a full faith and credit guaranty by the US government on securities containing mortgages made to first-time and lower-income borrowers, Ginnie Mae has created a global community of investors committed to providing private capital to support homeownership across the country. For over fifty-five years, Ginnie Mae has been instrumental in expanding mortgage access to Black, Latino, Indigenous, and rural borrowers.
But what motivated a Dartmouth philosophy major and a Yale Law School graduate to dedicate his life to public service?
“I think that started at home,” Valverde explains. “My cousins and I were taught to treat everyone with respect, always remembering that we didn’t know other people’s life stories. We were raised to believe that everyone deserves moral dignity and that you must recognize and honor that in people and in your relationships with them.”
Valverde, the son of a Peruvian mother and an Indian father, credits the success of his extended family as a shared success, and that recognition fundamentally impacted how he thought about the world. He learned early on that success is never achieved alone—it’s always a team effort.
He attended Regis High School, an all-scholarship Catholic high school in Manhattan. Regis’s mission—to create “men for others”—emphasized community and public service as an integral component of providing an elite education. Valverde acknowledges that his family wouldn’t have known about Regis if it weren’t for the fact that his mother worked in a convent where the sisters took an interest in his future.
“If those sisters hadn’t suggested I apply to Regis, my life might have turned out very differently,” Valverde says. “I couldn’t have afforded to go to a New York prep school otherwise. That is a significant part of my story too.”
Valverde credits Regis with setting the trajectory of his professional career, paving the way for college and law school. At his law firm, he quickly learned the value of diversity.
“At my firm, being a native Spanish speaker was an asset, both for myself and the firm. We had a strong presence in Latin America and Spain, and having partners and associates with language skills and cultural ties to the region was a key part of our value proposition,” he explains. “I learned early on that diversity brings strength, and that’s a lesson I’ve tried to uphold throughout my career.”
Today, Valverde leads a $2.6 trillion business that supports millions of homeowners. But for him, the real essence of his role is about creating more stories like his own.
Valverde says meeting the growing housing needs of the Latino community is becoming more and more important. The housing sector accounts for roughly 13 percent of the national economy, and Valverde believes that helping more Latinos become first-time homeowners isn’t just the right thing to do, doing so also makes sound economic policy.
“Keeping the housing sector growing is vital to keeping the national economy growing,” he explains. “Serving Latinos serves all Americans in a very tangible way. It’s important to underscore that. The best way to meet the housing needs of Latinos is to ensure that leaders in housing and government understand those needs and respond to them.”
Valverde points out that Latinos are currently entering into their prime home-buying years. “Everyone benefits from the increased jobs, consumer spending, and increased tax base that meeting the housing needs of current and future generations of Latinos would generate. We have a unique opportunity, over the long term, to make the economic pie bigger for everyone,” Valverde says.
As the first Latino head of Ginnie Mae, Valverde hopes he won’t be the last. He recognizes how vital his organization is in supporting homeownership in the US, and he believes that representation in his industry matters greatly. Stories like his matter—they can transform what might otherwise feel like a faceless governmental agency into an organization that truly understands the profound change that homeownership can bring.
But Valverde is quick to acknowledge that many people, not just himself, are making this mission possible.
“I see the power of diversity every single day under Acting Secretary [Adrianne] Todman,” Valverde says. “She’s a houser’s houser. She brings her whole head and her whole heart to the work, and you see that across this organization. We have leaders who have experienced homelessness or lived in Section 8 housing. They’ve benefitted from the programs we support here. They know those programs intimately, and they know how to help others.”
Sam Valverde could have pursued virtually any path with his Yale JD. But he chose to help others achieve the dream of homeownership because he understands the positive impact it can have on generations to come.
