Fannie Mae has appointed J. Douglas Watt as chief audit executive, effective July 11.

Watt joins Fannie Mae from GE Capital, where he was managing director and audit executive for the Americas. Watt also was a member of GE Capital’s senior audit leadership team and a member of several key GE Capital Americas management committees, including Operational Risk Management, Enterprise Risk Management, Credit Risk, and Compliance.

Watt has 35 years of audit experience, including overseeing the internal auditing of GE Capital’s North American Commercial Lending and Leasing businesses, the largest GE Capital business segment, and helping to lead the audit function’s critical regulatory initiatives.

Prior to GE Capital, Watt served as vice president, corporate audit services at Capital One Financial, where he led retail bank and commercial bank audit programs. Prior to that, Watt was a partner in the banking and capital markets practice at PwC, where he provided assurance and consulting services to a broad array of commercial and retail banks, reserve banks, broker dealers, trust, and asset management entities.