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Mortgage Professional America celebrates the Elite Women of 2024, a cohort of top performers and role models across the sector.
Their success truly marks them out as female leaders in the mortgage industry due to the structural barriers they have faced.
Statistics calculated by career platform Zippia show a dominance of men who enjoy higher rates of pay.
Of the 25,500 estimated mortgage brokers:
32.5 percent are women
67.5 percent are men
In 2022, women earned 90 percent of what men earned.
Of the 239,300 estimated loan officers:
44.7 percent are women
55.3 percent are men
In 2022, women loan officers earned 87 percent of what men earned.
MPA’s own data comparing this year’s winners to 2023’s list highlights:
3.57 percent rise in Elite Women who felt there was not a lack of women leaders for younger women to look up to
13.89 percent drop in Elite Women whose firm has equal pay policies for the same roles regardless of gender
12.5 percent rise in Elite Women who feel they would have achieved more in terms of seniority or responsibility if they were not female
VP, Senior Mortgage Loan Officer
Team success is as important as individual honors for the former swim athlete who pivoted from a sporting career as a teenager due to injury.
She says, “I have been successful because it’s more than a job. I’ve been doing this for so long and it’s about helping everyone. Loan officers are commission employees, but if we don’t have a strong bank behind us, it makes it hard to provide the best service and rates. When you work as a team, you create something that is a success for everyone.”
Alongside her own personal production, Freitag runs the marketing department for her team.
However, potentially her biggest impact is taking the lead on technological improvements. She has overseen the introduction of new software for the bank’s loan officers and is set to introduce a similar upgrade on the customer-facing side of the business.
Freitag explains, “When I see something that’s not efficient, I like to find a fix, but tech is not something I’m trained in. I’ve done research and figured things out. It’s a big push for our bank to make sure that we’re staying ahead of the game with what’s coming next.”
The pinnacle of Freitag’s mix of mortgage industry skills and tech advancement was the creation of VA.Mortgage.com.
It offers veterans the ability to obtain loans of:
100 percent of the purchase price
government security backing to offer lower rates
easier qualification
lower closing costs that lender can charge
“I did the creation of the website and worked with the web developers on how we should layer in the technology for the online platform,” she says.
The idea was sparked by Freitag noticing the veterans weren’t being served as well as they should be by sections of the industry.
“There are big companies – I won’t mention them – that really overcharge veterans significantly and it’s super sad,” shares Freitag. “These are people that have fought for our country and should be taken care of. We have done it from a ground-level approach. It’s our mission to make sure that they’re getting the best pricing and the best rates, and they are taken care of by people that care.”
Another leadership mantle that Freitag has taken on is using her nous and experience to help less-experienced colleagues. She cautions about the need to appreciate the legal framework.
“Certain loan officers are very successful on social media, but we are a bank, so we need to stay compliant. What I really strive to do is not only give them the tools to market themselves, but to stay compliant at the same time,” she says.
And underlining the complete circle of her journey, Freitag adds, “I used to get up at 4 a.m. to go to practice before school and then go after school. That energy I had in the pool, I’ve been able to move into my work.”
Director
Making the industry operate more smoothly is Hewitt’s legacy.
After spending time as a processor in her over 20-year career, she appreciates how they are often in difficult situations.
“I always feel like we are the nurses to the loan officers who are the doctors. They are the ones who get the praise. By nature, we are the ones who get thrown under the bus and are the default fault if one happens,” she says.
To change that narrative, Hewitt ensures individuals joining her team don’t experience this.
“I let them know that they are supported, that we don’t automatically take the loan officers’ side. If there’s a conflict or an issue, we want to hear both sides and come to a resolution.”
And she continues, “I think that’s become a huge draw to come to Willow Processing because they know they are supported and are not going to be booted out the door in the first 30 days because a loan officer had a bad day or didn’t like their tone.”
In the past seven months in her management role, Hewitt has overseen increases of:
500 percent in team size
300 percent of volume intake
The key strategy Hewitt uses to build bridges is communication. For her, it’s about enabling an atmosphere where everyone can speak up.
“We never make them feel like they don’t have a voice.”
More direct ways that Hewitt has led her team with distinction include:
weekly meetings
offering to become salaried at any point
maintaining a fee-per-file status quo model
guaranteed minimum income (non-recoverable) for first 60 days of employment regardless of whether any loans are closed
She shares, “I know that it takes time to build their pipeline, so it shows that we make an investment in them. I want to make sure that they know they’re supported.”
In addition, Hewitt has put systems in place so all processors operate in the same way, ensuring a consistent level of service to loan officers. This reflects her appreciation that each successful loan application translates into a loan officer's earnings.
Last year, Hewitt and a colleague went out to speak to active brokers and loan officers.
“We didn’t go to promote our business. We went to listen to what they need and to see what we could implement in our systems to better support them. They were kind of blown away.”
Other initiatives Hewitt has overseen the introduction of are:
upfront per-file LOA service
integration with ARIVE and LendingPad
“It means the loan officers are not bogged behind their computers, taking applications and trying to prequalify people. They can go out and sell business. We can also update their LOS and files, in case they have triggers that go out when appraisals are ordered," she says.
Describing the way Willow operates as “rare,” Hewitt has implemented a system where loan officers deal with the same processors, building up trust and communication.
She says, “We are getting our processors to a point in their pipeline where they’re making the money they need to make and are supporting a handful of loan officers. A lot of processing companies or even lenders who have internal processing use a round-robin system, so the loan officers don’t know who they are going to get.”
Senior Manager, Mortgage and Capital Markets
After assuming her current role in October, this Elite Woman has made an impact across the national industry.
After being a senior mortgage banker and originator for Real Genius, a division of FirstBank, Finn was a regular user of FICO’s services. She estimates that over 15 years, she personally pulled more than 20,000 FICO scores.
“I am now working for the company that developed the analytics for credit scoring for the industry. It’s very serendipitous. I thought I was an expert on all things FICO score, but when I got here very quickly, it was apparent that I still had a lot to learn,” she says.
In response and realizing others are in the same position, Finn has boosted her education efforts.
She says, “There’s so much opportunity for education and helping individuals understand what goes into FICO scoring, and how to build credit, and how that impacts your financial well-being.”
Another major undertaking that Finn is overseeing is migrating the industry onto the new system, FICO Score 10T, which enables lenders to expand their credit box while reducing the number of borrower delinquencies. It is estimated to:
increase approvals by 5 percent
reduce delinquencies by 17 percent
It has been made compulsory for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac starting in 2025, and Finn is bringing firms onboard voluntarily to adopt the new system and keep pace.
In six months, she has already signed:
Movement Mortgage
CrossCountry Mortgage
Primis Bank
Primer Lending
Cardinal Financial
Planet Home
PRMG (Paramount Residential Mortgage Group, Inc.)
Liberty Home Mortgage
Encompass Lending Group
Equity Resources, Inc.
Clear Mountain Bank
CMG Financial
Michigan First Credit Union
Finn adds, “It’s really exciting to be part of something that’s so pivotal within the industry, because they’ve never been through this migration before.”
What has enabled her to be effective is communication skills.
FICO has traditionally not focused on a client-facing presence, and it was typically separated from clients by a supply chain.
“Leadership has made the effort to change and start building out a team so we can create those relationships, and step one has literally been ‘How can I help?’ and letting them know they have a contact,” explains Finn. “Even if it’s just a question about how something impacts a FICO score, we’ve got a relationship. Then, I can talk to them about the upcoming transition and let them know they may want to consider it as many lenders are hopping on board.”
Asking questions and being inquisitive is one of Finn’s qualities. This has helped her build a knowledge base that is being fully leveraged at FICO.
“Anytime I feel overwhelmed or stressed, I remind myself how lucky I am to have found something that really ties all of my past experiences together, and it’s something I really enjoy doing.”
In a traditionally male-dominated industry, there have been challenges and hurdles to overcome.
MPA’s Elite Women of 2024 share their own experiences.
Freitag: “I don’t think about it a whole lot. I’ve just got to be me and do what I do. Something I bring to the table is a lot of organization around systems and processes that help the whole team. I don’t know if that is because I am a woman, but I think I’m compassionate and I look at the big picture to try to help everybody. One thing is with all the meetings on Zoom, I’ve found that people are kind of shy, but I make sure I still say everything that I would if we were sitting at the table together.”
Hewitt: “Being in the industry over 20 years, it was very much a gentlemen’s club, now I think the culture as a whole has become more accepting and willing to let people of different genders or identities step into the limelight. When I was working for Bank of America and Countrywide, I was an internal processor, and a lot of times, it was hard for loan officers to trust or listen to me. It definitely was a struggle, but I persevered. I have to credit the drive that I have to my mom, Barbara, because she was a very strong female in her field of education and faced a lot of the same boys’ club-type situations.”
Finn: “The industry has definitely been male-dominated historically and, being a woman over the years, I’ve had to find my voice and figuratively speak up more than maybe I’ve been comfortable with. I would say it also feels like the industry is very open to more women having a presence in leadership and encouraging of it. We help borrowers buy their first vacation home, consolidate debt, reduce expenses, and home ownership is one of the fastest ways to grow generational wealth. The mortgage industry is still a great career path. I think women have a natural knack for building relationships and that’s really the core of being able to connect with a borrower and make them want to do business with you.”
Scroll down to see the list of the mortgage industry’s female leaders of 2024 and read some of their profiles.
Mortgage Professional America invited industry professionals from across the country to nominate exceptional female leaders for the eighth annual Elite Women list. Nominees had to be working in a role that related to, interacted with, or in some way impacted the industry and should have demonstrated a clear passion for their work.
Nominators were asked to describe the nominee’s standout professional achievements over the past 12 months, initiatives and innovations, and contributions to the mortgage industry.
After a thorough review of all the nominations, the MPA team narrowed down the list to the final 50 Elite Women of 2024 who have made their mark in the industry.
