Franklin Delano Raines (born January 14, 1949 in Seattle, Washington) is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae who served as White House budget director under President Bill Clinton.
The son of a Seattle janitor, Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University. He served as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. Then he joined Lazard Freres and Co. , where he worked for 11 years and became a general partner. In 1991 he became Fannie's Mae's Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to become director of the White House Office of Management and Budget , where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, one of just a few African American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement" from his position as CEO as SEC investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities that may force Fannie Mae to restate some $9 billion in earnings.