Jim Parrott is a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors, which provides strategic advice on housing finance issues to financial institutions active in the primary and secondary mortgage market. Before joining Urban in 2013, Parrott spent several years in the Obama White House as a senior adviser at the National Economic Council, where he led the team of advisers charged with counseling the cabinet and president on housing issues. He was on point for developing the administration’s major housing policy positions; articulating and defending those positions with Congress, the press, and public; and counseling White House leadership on related communications and legislative strategy. Before his time in the White House, Parrott was counsel to Secretary Donovan at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Before that, he was a litigator, first in New York with Sullivan and Cromwell, and later in North Carolina with Smith Anderson. Parrott has a BA in philosophy from the University of North Carolina, an MA in philosophy from the University of Washington, and a JD from Columbia Law School. He was a Peace Corps volunteer and served in Sri Lanka. He currently serves on the local advisory board of the Ackland Museum of Art in Chapel Hill, NC.
