Her mentor was the unlikeliest person one might imagine
One never knows just who might play a pivotal role in a person’s career. A career-starting influence sometimes can come for the unlikeliest of sources.
Take Tai Pherribo Christensen (pictured), president of Arrive Home, whose mortgage industry mentorship came from an implausible source. “I actually came into the industry at the suggestion of a very unlikely source – my husband’s ex-wife,” she told Mortgage Professional America during a recent telephone interview. “She was a contract loan processor in the early 2000s, working remotely from home.”
She remembers the conversation vividly: “My husband and I had just had our first child. We just happened to be on the phone one day, she and I, and she said ‘you know, the way your brain works, you’d make a really great underwriter.’ At the time, I’d gone to school for interior design, and mortgage was not on my radar at all.”
But the ability to work from home appealed to Christensen. “I went to one of the first online schools called Mortgage Training Institute in 2002,” she recalled. “I took a crash course in originations and processing and a light course in underwriting and got my certification from them. I started remote processing for three brokerages in Salt Lake City.”
Find out What comes first, underwriting or processing?
Learning the ropes of the trade
From those humble beginnings, Christensen is now among the rarefied ranks of the Global 100 – a list of the top mortgage industry professionals as vetted by MPA and its sister publications. In making the list, Christensen is one of just two dozen Americans so honored.
She would continue remote processing until 2008 when she began a 10-year stint in loss mitigation before returning to retail. “So that’s my start – unlikely source, my husband’s ex-wife,” she said with a laugh. “She was actually my mentor the first year,” she added. “She really taught me the ins and outs of the industry and how to effectively multitask. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”
At Arrive Home, she heads a program providing down payment assistance and alternative credit solutions in underserved communities. Well before ascending to the president’s role, her work has long centered on evening out the playing field to accommodate underserved borrowers.
Prior to her current position, she spent nearly five years at CBC Mortgage Agency where she was tapped as diversity, equity and inclusion officer. In that role, she oversaw the Chenoa Fund, a nationwide down payment assistance program designed to make housing more affordable, especially for low- to -moderate-income buyers and first-time purchasers.
“I still speak regularly at conferences talking about diversity, equity and inclusion,” she said. “Especially after the repeal of affirmative action, those messages need to be shouted even higher from the rooftop because we don’t want to see all of our efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) be minimized just due to that ruling.”
Moreover, Christensen is chair of the American Mortgage Diversity Council and also hosts the California MBA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion podcast. As of January, she is co-chair of the DEI committee for the California MBA.
Together with former colleagues at the Chenoa Fund, she launched Arrive Home in January 2023. “We have some different program we can offer that we weren’t able to offer at Chenoa,” she said. “So it’s more competitive and forward thinking. We lean on technology quite a bit – just a more refreshed version of a new way to do DEI.”
She honed her communication skills at an early age
Invariably, people possess certain traits that help fuel their success. In Christensen’s case, she attributes her ability to connect with people as key to her own success.
It’s a trait that’s developed early: “My mom always used to tell me when was little that I would float across the classroom like a butterfly talking to all the kids,” she said. “I’ve always been the kind of person who likes talking to people. I’m very passionate by nature, and that really lends well to working in a conference circle, making friends in the industry and being able to share our message with the broader population in a way that most people seem to like to receive it. I’ve been a professional networker since kindergarten.”
Want to make your inbox flourish with mortgage-focused news content? Get exclusive interviews, breaking news, industry events in your inbox, and always be the first to know by subscribing to our FREE daily newsletter.
