Gita Sankano on Believing in Your Path When You're the First

Gita Sankano grew up in the Bronx after being born in Harlem. Nobody in her family had attended college before her. That meant no roadmap, no inherited wisdom about applications or financial aid, and no playbook for navigating the academic world that lay ahead.

From the Bronx to Big Law: Charting a course no one else had taken

She enrolled at CUNY John Jay College, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and later a Master's degree in Public Administration. While in graduate school, Sankano worked as an auditor at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters on Wall Street. The combination of public administration coursework and hands-on exposure to large municipal systems gave her a view into how cities function, where resources flow, and how policy decisions shape daily life for millions of people.

Law school came next. Sankano attended the University of Maryland School of Law, graduating cum laude in the top 20 percent of her class. She served as Associate Symposium Editor for the Business & Technology Law Journal and Staff Editor for The Authority National Affordable Housing Law Digest. She won first place in the Paul Cardish Writing Competition and received the Dean's Fellow scholarship for academic performance.

Building expertise in housing finance and complex transactions

After law school, Sankano clerked for the Honorable Michael W. Reed at the Court of Special Appeals in Maryland. The clerkship offered an inside look at appellate reasoning and judicial decision-making, skills that would prove useful in the transactional work that followed.

She then joined a large law firm, where she spent about five years counseling mortgage banking clients on the origination, sale, and servicing of loan transactions sold to secondary market investors. Much of her work centered on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs, representing lenders in Fannie Mae's Delegated Underwriting and Servicing product line and Freddie Mac's Capital Markets Execution program.

Sankano also coordinated closings across the United States for lenders financing multifamily housing projects and healthcare facilities under various FHA insurance programs. These included Sections 220, 221(d)(4), 223(a)(7), 223(f), 232, and 241(a) of the National Housing Act. Many of the deals involved complex layered structures: Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits, taxable and tax-exempt bonds, secondary financing from state and local sources, bridge loans, Section 8 contracts, Section 202 and Section 236 Use Agreements, and mezzanine financing.

The work required precision. Each financing layer came with its own compliance requirements, regulatory constraints, and stakeholder expectations. Missing a detail or miscalculating a timing requirement could unravel months of negotiation.

Shifting focus to public service and community impact

Today, Sankano represents the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development in complex affordable housing finance transactions. She works on deals involving multi-layered financing, Low Income Housing Tax Credits, tax-exempt bonds, subordinate soft debt, and property acquisitions and dispositions. She also advises the agency on legal issues related to affordable housing policies, programs, and initiatives, and reviews and drafts legal documents for the range of affordable and community development programs the department administers.

The shift from private practice to public service marked a change in perspective. Instead of representing lenders and private clients, Sankano now works on behalf of a city agency tasked with expanding housing options for residents who need them most. The technical skills remain the same. The mission is different.

What believing in yourself actually means in practice

Sankano has spoken about the role of belief in shaping outcomes. For her, it means understanding that you have control over your destiny, even when the path is not yet clear. Being the first in her family to attend college meant there was no template to follow. She found mentors who helped her navigate the process.

Her mother has been a consistent influence. Sankano describes her as a hard-working woman who never gives up and keeps moving forward. That persistence, passed down, became part of how Sankano approached her own education and career.

Success, in her view, is not only about individual achievement. It is about giving back to the community and sharing whatever knowledge you have with young people coming up behind you. Sankano was a keynote speaker at the Smiling Coast Women Conference, where she addressed themes of professional growth and resilience.

Bringing big ideas to life through structure and persistence

Sankano's career reflects a series of deliberate choices built on a foundation that was anything but assured. She moved from auditing municipal budgets to analyzing complex real estate transactions, from private firm work to public agency counsel. Each step required learning a new set of rules, building new relationships, and adapting to new expectations.

The big idea she has brought to life is less about a single transaction or a headline deal and more about proving that someone without a family legacy in higher education or law can build that legacy themselves. She has done that through focus, mentorship, and a willingness to take on work that demands both technical skill and a broader sense of purpose.