Edmund F. Taylor has been a member of our board since July 2010 and has served as a board member of Walker & Dunlop, LLC since January 2009. Mr. Taylor is currently a managing director at Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, where he manages all the global legacy businesses, including commercial real estate, in the fixed income department of the bank's investment banking division. Mr. Taylor is a member of the fixed income department's operating committee. Prior to assuming his current role at Credit Suisse, he was chief operating officer of the global securities business in its investment banking division. Before joining Credit Suisse in 1996, Mr. Taylor spent three years in the commercial real estate group at Daiwa Securities America, an investment banking company, where he was a senior trader and deal manager. Prior to that, he spent six years in a variety of roles in Drexel Burnham Lambert's residential mortgage-backed securities business. Mr. Taylor also spent two years at Goldman Sachs, where he developed financial models for its commodities business. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, the Sam Zell Real Estate Institute at the Wharton Graduate School of Business, the American Finance Association and the American Economics Association. Mr. Taylor received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Hamilton College and his Masters in Business Administration from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Mr. Taylor's in depth knowledge of the real estate industry, his experience with mortgage-backed securities, his senior management experience, and his business affiliations throughout the real estate and investment banking communities provide strong leadership and support to the rest of our board, particularly on capital markets matters.
