Mortgage Connect's EVP and chief strategy officer highlights the importance of encouragement and allyship in the industry
Cristy Ward, the executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Mortgage Connect, believes that empowering females in her industry is a joint undertaking of both women and men, mainly those in leadership positions.
She applied this principle to her own life around 30 years ago, when she and her husband decided he would be a stay-at-home dad so she could focus on her career. Today, Ward attributes her success to that decision, along with consistent hard work and tenacity. Being one of Mortgage Professional America’s Elite Women in 2023, she aims to inspire younger professionals who are finding their way in a demanding environment.
Although her days as a C-level executive tend to be busy, she describes them as “a lot of fun and always very challenging,” often providing opportunities to learn more, she said in this interview with Mortgage Professional America.
To achieve her long-term purpose, Ward established a financial services non-profit called Women Empowering Women (WEW), which encourages peer-to-peer collaboration among the industry’s female executives.
Ward is pleased with WEW’s organic growth and how, despite having no formal mentorship program, “we’ve added these women that are up-and-coming to our small group, [and] these EVPs and C-level women have taken them under their wings, so they have a sounding board, they have a safe place to go.”
She says she’s proud that 80% of WEW’s members are high-level executives, 15% have become entrepreneurs, and many have advanced in their careers or moved on to more supportive organizations where they could thrive.
Ward admires the courage of the women who have “bet on themselves” and finds it “rewarding to watch them take those steps.”
Succeeding in an industry that’s still male-dominated, she says, means that women have to pay closer attention to their inner circle and push others into the right roles. Men can also be “allies and champions” who give their female colleagues the roles and autonomy they deserve.
