President Barack Obama ’91 has nominated Helen R. Kanovsky ’76 as general counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Since 2001, Kanovsky has served as the chief operating officer of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, a $3.4 billion registered investment company which invests in housing securities for union and public pension plans. She joined the trust in 1995 as general counsel. From 1998-1999, she was chief of staff to U.S. Senator John Kerry.
Earlier in her career, she was executive vice president and general counsel of GE Capital Asset Management and its predecessor, Skyline Financial Services Corp. She also was an attorney at Dickstein, Shapiro and Morin and served as special assistant to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare; and associate executive secretary to the Department of Health & Human Services.
For the past three years she has been the chair of the National Housing Conference and she is a member of the boards of the Center for Housing Policy and the Special Olympics of the District of Columbia, as well as a Trustee of the National Labor College.