Joseph Firschein

Joseph Firschein is an Adjunct Professor in Virginia Tech University's Urban Affairs and Planning program where he co-teaches a class titled "A Practitioner's Perspective on Community Economic Development". Joseph leads the Federal Reserve Board's Community Affairs team that is responsible for assessing the performance of Reserve Banks with respect to the Community Affairs function and working with Reserve Banks and practitioners to promote community development policy research and best practices.  In addition, he oversees the Board's Consumer Advisory Council made up of business and community leaders from each of the Reserve Bank regions that provides guidance to the Board on emerging banking and financial services consumer policy issues.

Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Board, Joseph served as a Director in Fannie Mae’s Housing and Community Development Division where he managed the business segment responsible for financing community development financial institutions and led the company’s efforts to sell foreclosed single family homes to public entities and nonprofits.  Prior to joining Fannie Mae, Joseph managed lending to community development financial institutions at the U.S. Treasury Department Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund and served as lead community development analyst at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Housing Branch.  In addition to his finance experience, he has also served as a senior manager at America Online where he managed the development and marketing of AOL’s broadband products.

Joseph is actively involved with a number of Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit and educational organizations.  He was a founding board member of the Educated Consumer Project, a nonprofit organization that provides financial literacy education to low-income high school students.  He is a board member and Treasurer of Yachad, a nonprofit organization that revitalizes housing in low-income neighborhoods.  He also serves as adjunct professor at Virginia Tech’s Alexandria, Virginia masters program in urban planning where he teaches a course in community development finance.

Joseph has an MBA in Finance from the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business; a Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the University of California, Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy; and a B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University.