Mathew Wambua

Mathew M. Wambua is an affordable housing practitioner and public servant, recognized as a leading figure within the field of public benefit real estate finance. Among other acknowledgments, Mr. Wambua has been recognized as Commercial Observer’s 2024-2026 Power Finance’s 50 Most Influential Players in Commercial Real Estate Finance, City & State’s 2022 Real Estate Power 100, and New York Observer’s 2011 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate.

Mr. Wambua currently serves as Vicechair and Executive Vice President of Agency Lending at Merchants Capital (NASDAQ: MBIN), where he has played a primary role in establishing one of the nation’s leading multifamily affordable housing financing platforms. Merchants Capital provides Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and FHA debt products, as well as balance sheet bank lending and tax credit equity investment.

In 2013, Mr. Wambua transitioned from a career in government to a career in public benefit finance. Towards that end, he went to The Richman Group, where he was charged with launching an affordable housing debt platform as President of Richmac Funding. In 2016, Richmac Funding merged with PR Mortgage to form Merchants Capital, which, over a short period of time, has evolved into one of the nation’s top affordable housing financing platforms: the #3 Freddie Mac Multifamily Optigo® Targeted Affordable Housing (TAH) Lender of 2025, #5 Fannie Mae DUS Producers for Multifamily Affordable Housing in 2025 and #3 Multifamily Affordable Total Originations for 2025 (MBA). Since 2020, Merchants Capital has provided approximately $50 billion in debt and equity financing.

In March 2011, Mr. Wambua was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the nation’s largest municipal housing agency, with a workforce of more than 2,000 employees and an annual budget of approximately $1.2 billion. During his tenure, he oversaw the financing of approximately 47,000 housing units, representing a $6 billion investment. HPD exceeded annual production targets despite an adverse fiscal climate in which the annual budget was cut by over $90 million per year. Additionally, Mr. Wambua led a number of special initiatives, including refinancing the preservation of the city’s largest multifamily middle-income housing development, Coop City; financing the construction of Hunter’s Point, the largest new affordable housing development since Coop City; doubling the annual production of supportive housing units; and launching HPD’s first MWBE initiative, aimed at expanding opportunities for MWBEs to engage as developers and contractors on HPD sponsored/financed projects.

Mr. Wambua earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has taught real estate finance at New York University’s Graduate School of Public Service and managerial economics at the New School’s Graduate School of Public Policy.