Thomas H. Stanton is a Past President of the Association for Federal Enterprise Risk Management (AFERM), an organization dedicated to improving risk management in federal agencies and programs. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), and a former member of the federal Senior Executive Service. In 2017 NAPA awarded him its George Graham Award for Exceptional Service to the Academy.
Mr. Stanton teaches as an adjunct faculty member at the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, where he received the award for Excellence in Teaching. He teaches the program’s core course for the MBA/MA in Government, and a graduate seminar on government, risk management, and the financial markets. Mr. Stanton has been an invited witness before many congressional committees and subcommittees.
With a career that bridges the practical and the academic, Stanton’s work has led to the creation of new offices and approaches to delivering public services more effectively. Mr. Stanton’s accomplishments over the years include:
- • Providing strategic planning to assist the Small Business Administration to launch and implement its $ 5 billion loan asset sales program,
- • Assisting the Small Business Administration to create an Office of Lender Oversight,
- • Assisting the Office of Management and Budget to set a multiyear agenda for improved management of federal credit programs,
- • Inventing the concept of contingent capital now used to strengthen major financial institutions globally,
- • Assisting the USDA-Rural Development mission to establish Enterprise Risk Management and hire a Chief Risk Officer, and
- • Producing numerous books and articles and helping to convene conferences and roundtables to help federal agencies improve design and management practices.
And legislative activities, including:
- • Assisting in enacting legislation to create an early safety-and-soundness regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and
- • Assisting in enacting legislation to require government publication of an annual Tax Expenditure Report
Mr. Stanton’s book, Why Some Firms Thrive While Others Fail: Governance and Management Lessons from the Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2012), builds on his service with the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, where he interviewed numerous CEOs, bankers, traders, risk officers, regulators and policymakers. . That book has now been published in China (企业生死之谜:经济危机的治理与管理教训).
Another book, edited with Douglas Webster, is Managing Risk and Performance: A Guide for Government Decision Makers (John Wiley & Sons, 2014)
This website contains information about the books and articles that Tom Stanton has written. You are welcome to download any of the publications available on the site.
If you have questions or comments, please email Tom Stanton at: tstan77346@gmail.com.
![]() |
![]() |