Michael T. Pugh, LISC’s president and CEO, touched base with Next City about the path that brought him to LISC, the critical need for affordable housing creation, and the potentials of AI in creating economic mobility, especially for unbanked Americans.

In a wide-ranging interview with Denver Fredericks, host of the Business of Giving podcast, LISC CEO Michael T. Pugh describes the pillars of LISC's work investing in communities and what's on the horizon for the CDFI under his leadership. "[We] can be a real catalyst for economic development in communities," says Pugh. "And frankly the best is yet to come."

By Jacqueline Waggoner, Enterprise Community Partners and Tahirih Ziegler, LISC

California’s recently formed Foreclosure Intervention Housing Preservation Program (FIHPP) is poised to fund nonprofit housing groups to buy rental properties in or at risk of foreclosure and quickly convert them to long-term affordable housing. Now, FIHPP is hanging in the legislative balance. LISC’s Tahirih Zigler and Enterprise Community Partners’ Jacqueline Waggoner weigh in on the imperative of safeguarding the program to help spare many Californians from the preventable tragedies of displacement and homelessness.

In naming Michael Pugh a leader in finance, Crain's NY noted his leadership of LISC, a CDFI that has invested $30 billion in underserved communities, as well as his accomplishments in establishing a loan fund leveraging alternative data and cultivating the next generation of financial leaders at HBCUs.

Talking Financial Stability With LISC CEO Michael T. Pugh

In a wide-ranging radio interview with Audacy's On the Block 94.7, LISC CEO Michael T. Pugh unpacks the ways CDFIs, from the most local to the largest, are so well poised to support financial mobility. He also praises the role of good financial advice, and forecasts how AI can create alternative methods for building credit.

In a Q+A with ImpactAlpha, Michael T. Pugh delves into the ways community development finance must operate in the wake of new affirmative action legislation, and what the big-ticket items on LISC’s 2024 investment list are, including small business support and green jobs and homes.