Fixing the House shares former CFO of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development’s lessons in management through the story of how he transformed the HUD’s weak financial infrastructure in only a matter of years. After a 37-year career at Ernst & Young, Irving was pulled out of retirement and became the CFO of HUD where he led a financial transformation process that required surgical and tactical leadership and management to accomplish a complete transformation of the financial infrastructure. Fixing the House is not about making political statements. It is about the importance of bringing private-sector experience to the government.
The book is written so that each chapter or section stands on its own and critical management learnings can be gathered from each chapter or section, without reading the entirety of the book. Topics include:
- HUD’s state of affairs upon arrival (2016)
- How Irving approached the first 100 Days
- The evaluation of governance, people, processes, and technology
- The transformation process
- Barriers to success
- Making it sustainable upon a change in administration
- Differences between the private-sector and government
Irv Dennis is a strategic board member, advisor, executive, and financial expert. He is the former Chief Financial Officer of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and spent a 37-year career at Ernst & Young, LLP, retiring as a Senior Global Client Service Partner.
Foreword from former Secretary of HUD, Dr. Ben Carson
Introduction—What a Reader Can Expect
PART I—THE BEGINNING
Chapter 1—The Nomination Process
Chapter 2—About HUD
Chapter 3—HUD’s State of Affairs upon My Arrival
PART II—THE EVALUATION PROCESS
Chapter 4—My First Hundred Days
Chapter 5—The Evaluation of Governance, People, Processes, and Technology
Chapter 6—Understanding How It Got This Bad
Chapter 7—Barriers to Success
PART III—THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
Chapter 8—Building the Platform for Success
Mission Statement
Stakeholder Buy-in
Leadership
Governance
Chapter 9—Financial and IT Modernization
Financial Transformation Plan
Intelligent Automation Strategy
IT Modernization
Enterprise Fraud and Risk Management
Chapter 10—Coordination with Critical Service Providers
Shared Services with ARC
The Audit Process
Chapter 11—The Results: Where we were in 2020
Chapter 12—Making HUD’s Transformation Sustainable
PART IV—OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
Chapter 13—Differences Between the Private and Public Sectors
Chapter 14—Final Thoughts: An Experience of a Lifetime
Pursuing a Career in the Executive Branch
Why It Matters
Testifying before Congress
Why the President’s “Transactional” Nature with His Staff Made Sense to Me
I Was Told It’s a Mean City and Trust No One
Experience of a Lifetime
The Final Twenty-Four Hours
Appendix A—Acronyms and Definitions
Appendix B—History of HUD
Appendix C—Summary of HUD’s 2020 Enacted Budget
Appendix D—CFO Letters in the Agency Financial Report
Appendix E—My Resignation Letter
Appendix F—List of HUD’s Accomplishments in 2019 and 2018
Acknowledgments
Index
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