FEATURED SPEAKERS
Johnathan Lawless
BILT REWARDS
Jonathan is Head of Impact at Bilt Rewards, where he develops solutions to support renters and help them become homeowners. Before that, Lawless was a senior executive at Fannie Mae in affordable housing; and, as Head of Product at Pathway Homes, he developed programs to bridge renting and owning.
Dan Hardcastle
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Dan Hardcastle is a senior advisor at HUD and FHA focused on innovative solutions for housing affordability and homeownership opportunity. Prior to his time in government, he founded a public-benefit-corporation startup to help homeowners develop and finance Accessory Dwelling Units, aiming to both expand the supply of affordable rental housing and provide homeowners additional income to keep them in their homes. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and the George Washington University Law School. He grew up in Orlando, Florida and lives with his family in Washington, DC’s Shaw neighborhood.
Kara Murray-Badal
TERNER LABS
Kara is the Director of the Terner Housing Lab, an accelerator that identifies and helps scale early-stage ventures working to make housing more affordable and fair. Each year the Housing Lab evaluates hundreds of new housing ventures and selects a cohort of five of the most promising innovations in the housing affordability space. She brings a wealth of managerial and project management experience from both the private and non-profit sectors. She’s a proud Oakland native with a history in community activism and politics, having consulted on policy for several cities and done communications and field leadership for national and local electoral campaigns. She is also the Board Chair of The Mosaic Project, a non-profit focused on communication across cultures and backgrounds.
Skye Laudari
CRIB EQUITY
Skye is the co-founder and CEO of Crib Equity, a shared equity investment platform dedicated to making homeownership more accessible. By partnering as a non-occupant co-owner, Crib Equity helps buyers by providing additional home equity, covering up to half of the down payment and transaction costs. This assistance allows buyers to access homeownership sooner and under more favorable financial conditions.
An experienced entrepreneur and seasoned product leader, Skye has nearly two decades of experience building and leading products across the PropTech, consumer, and enterprise sectors. Before founding Crib Equity, he developed the digital title and escrow platform at Modus, which was successfully acquired by Compass, where he also integrated mortgage and title services into Compass’ technology suite. This extensive background provides a solid foundation for his leadership at Crib Equity, where he drives innovation in co-investment strategies to facilitate homeownership.
His profound personal experiences, including being priced out of homeownership in California and making a 1,000-mile move to find a more accessible entry point into the housing market, deeply shape the company’s ethos and solutions. His journey back to Northern California, where he now resides with his family, exemplifies the transformative impact of breaking into the homeownership market and underscores the importance of addressing the systemic challenges that restrict access to homeownership.
Terry Theologides
FANNIE MAE
Stergios "Terry" Theologides is Fannie Mae's Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer. He reports to the Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the management committee. Mr. Theologides is responsible for leading our Communications & Public Affairs, Economic & Strategic Research, ESG & Mission, Legal, and Marketing functions. In this role, Mr. Theologides is focused on aligning strategy and communications around our mission-critical work to facilitate equitable and sustainable access to homeownership and quality affordable rental housing across America.
Previously, Mr. Theologides was Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, overseeing the Legal Division and Government & Industry Relations function and serving as a senior advisor to the Board of Directors.
Mr. Theologides joined Fannie Mae in March 2019 with more than 20 years of legal and business experience, including in financial services and regulatory environments. Prior to joining Fannie Mae, he served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary at CoreLogic, Inc. Before that, Mr. Theologides was Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Morgan Stanley's U.S. residential mortgage business. During his career, Mr. Theologides has been active on housing finance and consumer data policy issues, including having served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council and as chair of the Consumer Data Industry Association.
Mr. Theologides has a juris doctor from Columbia Law School, and a bachelor of arts in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University. He serves on the Board of Directors for Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Marisa Calderon
PROSPERITY NOW
Marisa Calderon is President & CEO of Prosperity Now, a national organization dedicated to advancing racial and ethnic economic justice headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Calderon, an experienced executive who is regularly recognized, awarded, and cited nationwide for her expertise in the housing and financial services industries, most recently served as the executive director at the NCRC Community Development Fund (NCRC CDF) and as chief of community finance and mobility at the NCRC CDF’s parent company, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).
Calderon’s expertise spans more than 20 years across the private and non-profit sectors focused on economic development and equity. At NCRC, Calderon focused on advancing economic mobility for communities impacted by systemic inequality and disinvestment. Under her leadership, NCRC CDF had capital at work in 20 cities across the country developing affordable homeownership inventory and deployed $175 million in pandemic relief funding in Illinois alone.
Before joining NCRC, Calderon was executive director for nearly a decade at the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), the largest minority and real estate trade association in the country. Calderon held prior roles in the financial services industry, most recently at Citi, and has experience in the public service sector including as a congressional candidate.
A native Spanish speaker and granddaughter of braceros, Calderon received her BA in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and serves on several boards and board committees including Working Solutions, Alinement Initiative and Champions Funding.
Noerena Limon
MARIPOSA
As the Principal and Founder of Mariposa Strategies LLC, Noerena provides strategic consulting to nonprofits, government entities, and private companies on issues ranging from housing finance and housing supply, bridging the racial/ethnic wealth gap, homeownership initiatives, land use, and movement/capacity building. Noerena serves clients such as the National Housing Conference, UnidosUS, The Urban Institute, Casita Coalition, and the County of San Diego.
In 2023, Noerena was appointed by Governor Newsom to serve on the Board of the California Housing Finance Agency and has served as a Housing Fellow for the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation since 2021 collaborating on research projects pertaining to California’s housing supply crisis.
Noerena Limón served most recently as EVP for Public Policy and Industry Relations at the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), where she founded the organization’s first national policy department and its corresponding National Advocacy Committee--NAHREP’s grassroots network. At NAHREP, Noerena led the organization’s research efforts, authoring both annual publications:
The State of Hispanic Homeownership Report and the State of Hispanic Wealth Report.
Prior to joining NAHREP, Noerena worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of Political Affairs at the White House, and served as a Legislative Fellow for the Office of former U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra. Noerena received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Currently, Noerena serves as Treasurer for the board of directors for MAAC Project, as an executive board member for Up For Growth Action, as is a member of
the National Housing Conference’s National Advisory Council.
Michael D Calhoun
CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE LENDING
Michael Calhoun is President of the Center for Responsible Lending, which is the policy affiliate of Self-Help, the nation’s largest community development lender that has provided over $6.4 billion in financing for first time homeowner loans and small business loans. The Center for Responsible Lending is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and policy institute focusing on consumer lending issues. Mr. Calhoun has been an active participant in consumer financial legislation and regulation, and he has more than thirty years experience in consumer lending. He has authored numerous papers on the subject and has testified often before Congress and many state legislatures. Prior to joining CRL, he led several lending divisions at Self-Help, including the secondary mortgage market program. He is a former member and chair of the Federal Reserve Consumer Advisory Committee. Mr. Calhoun received his B.A. degree in economics from Duke University, and his J.D. degree from the University of North Carolina.