Governor nominates departing DFS leader for State Mortgage Agency

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Jan. 29 that he is nominating Maria Vullo as a member of the State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA). She currently serves as superintendent of the Department of Financial Services (DFS) but is set to step down from that position on Feb.1.

SONYMA is a public-benefit corporation that New York State created in 1970 to help provide affordable homeownership to low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

Prior to joining DFS, Vullo was a litigation partner at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where she led civil, criminal, and regulatory investigations before courts and governmental authorities across the country.

Vullo also served as executive deputy attorney general for the Economic Justice Division in the Office of the New York State Attorney General, under then New York State Attorney General Cuomo. There, she oversaw the Bureaus of Investor Protection, Antitrust, Real Estate Finance, Consumer Frauds and Internet, leading investigations across New York State. Vullo earned her law degree from the New York University School of Law, a master’s in public administration from the New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and a bachelor’s degree from the College of Mount Saint Vincent. 

Cuomo on Jan. 4 announced that he has nominated Linda Lacewell to be the new superintendent of DFS, replacing Vullo. Lacewell most recently served as the governor’s chief of staff. In that role, she oversaw executive chamber operations, as well as ethics and law enforcement matters.

Lacewell previously served as executive director of a cancer foundation initiative in Culver City, California. Prior to that, she served as chief risk officer and counselor to Gov. Cuomo, where she built and implemented the first statewide system for ethics, risk and compliance in agencies and authorities, according to a governor’s office news release. Lacewell was formerly special counsel to the governor, as well as the architect of OpenNY, a state-of-the-art open data initiative. She also served as special counsel to then-Attorney General Cuomo, where she oversaw the public pension fund pay-to-play investigation and the out-of-network health insurance investigation. Lacewell earned her B.A. from New College of the University of South Florida and her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law.