Wells Fargo, Finance of America, Incenter name new leaders

February 25, 2022 3:18 PM

Wells Fargo taps Michael Ringwood to head correspondent channel

Wells Fargo Home Lending announced the promotion of Michael Ringwood to head of correspondent, its division known as Wells Fargo Funding. Ringwood takes over leadership responsibilities from Eric Stoddard, who previously announced his retirement.

Ringwood originally joined the San Francisco-based Wells Fargo in 1997 as director of its affordable housing initiative. He later moved to Wells Fargo Funding and for the last 17 years has served as its eastern division sales manager. Before coming to Wells Fargo, Ringwood held various positions at Citibank, Freddie Mac and the New York City Housing Partnership.

Finance of America hires Jason Rudman as chief customer officer

National mortgage lender Finance of America announced the addition of Jason Rudman to its executive team. Rudman steps in as chief customer officer, a newly created role at the Irving, Texas-based company. He will be in charge of developing client relationship strategies designed to retain customers, aligning Finance of America’s sales, operations and support efforts. He will also work to further develop the company’s digital presence.

“With the customer at the center of our expansive and growing lending universe, we aim to be their trusted partner throughout their lifelong financial journey," said CEO Patricia Cook. “To that end, we are committed to taking more deliberate steps to ensure they can seamlessly navigate our numerous offerings and end-to-end solutions designed to help them achieve their individual financial goals at various stages of life – whether through a mortgage, a refinance, a reverse, home improvement financing, a student loan or other specialty lending solutions.”

Before joining Finance of America, Rudman held the title of general manager, head of deposits and retail payments at USAA, where he was responsible for product strategy, customer experience and risk management for checking, debit and fee income services. He also held product development and leadership roles with KeyBank and American Express.

Earlier in February, Cook announced her retirement from Finance of America, where she has served as CEO since March 2020. She joined the company as senior managing director in 2016 and was promoted to president in 2017. Cook will remain as CEO until a successor is named.

Panorama Mortgage Group names Sarah Gonzalez president and COO

Las Vegas-based Panorama Mortgage Group, parent company of Alterra Home Loans, Legacy Home Loans, Inspiro Financial and others, named Sarah Gonzalez its new president and chief operating officer. In her new position, Gonzalez will be responsible for further scaling the group’s growth and overseeing core operating functions. “I love how PMG is servicing underserved borrowers and communities that need a lot of education on home lending and the application process,” she said.

Gonzalez recently held the role of chief operating officer at First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. and was previously senior vice president of strategic business operations at Stearns Lending.

PMG also announced that CEO Jason Madiedo would take on additional responsibilities as chief production officer, a position where he will concentrate on growth initiatives and expansion for the company.

SitusAMC adds title sales leaders Joe Salmons and Rob Dace

Left to right: Joe Salmons, Rob Dace

New York-based SitusAMC, provider of digital real estate financing tools and technology products, announced the hiring of Joe Salmons as senior vice president, sales, and Rob Dace as associate vice president, sales to its Title Production Solutions division. The unit is the largest title search provider in the U.S, supporting more than 2.1 million title search and other production related activities in 2021. Salmons and Dace will assist in the growth of the division’s title production offering, with Salmons leading strategic initiatives for sales, and Dace responsible for adding new partnerships and expanding the firm’s client relationships.

Salmons most recently served as national director of business development for Visible Equity, a data, analytics and visual reporting software firm. Earlier in his career, he was vice president of sales at ValueCheck, a mortgage software provider for credit unions and community banks and also held positions at First Valuation, National 1 Source and Lenders First Choice. Dace comes to SitusAMC from Michigan United Mortgage, where he was a licensed mortgage loan originator. He also had prior tenures with NYCB Mortgage Banking, Credit Suisse and CitiMortgage.

Incenter hires Shelley Duffy to manage enterprise sales

Photo by Paul Hartmann

Valuations and digital solutions provider Incenter, based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, named mortgage business-development leader Shelley Duffy as senior vice president, enterprise sales. In the position, Duffy will promote and sell Incenter’s products and technology to top-level executives across the industry. Duffy brings experience in both technology and corporate sales, previously serving as senior vice president, enterprise sales at Computershare Loan Services. Earlier in her career, Duffy held the role of senior relationship manager, enterprise sales with Radian. Incenter’s 11 different companies serve mortgage professionals across the loan cycle, including in originations, servicing and investing, with tools for title and appraisals, to MSR valuation and trading.

Sprout promotes Samuel Bjelac to lead third-party sales channel

Non-QM lender Sprout Mortgage, based in East Meadow, New York, announced the promotion of Samuel Bjelac to executive vice president in charge of its national third-party-originations sales channel. He had previously held the position of senior vice president of non-QM wholesale and correspondent business, leading a team behind aggregating non-QM/non-agency residential mortgages and business purpose investment property loans. In his elevated role, he will continue to grow Sprout’s business with wholesale brokers and correspondent lenders. Before joining Sprout in 2018, Bjelac held mortgage leadership positions at CoreVest American Finance and Carrington Mortgage Services and also served at Flagstar Bank, First Magnus Financial and Prudential Financial.

Among Sprout’s non-QM loan offerings are jumbo and super jumbo mortgages up to $10 million, debt service cover ratio and no-ratio investment loans and loans for self-employed borrowers and foreign nationals.

AI fintech Paradatec names Kim Weaver product strategy director

Paradatec, the artificial intelligence-based provider of tools for mortgage document processing welcomed Kim Weaver as director of product strategy. She comes to the Cincinnati-based fintech from Pyramid Systems, where she was vice president. Previously, Weaver also oversaw product management, strategy and client delivery of technology solutions for global fintech and payments company Fiserv and served as a senior business analyst at Freddie Mac.

In her role with Paradatec, she will work closely with clients to ensure proper function and use of its tools. “I've spent a lot of time in my career promoting the use of native electronic documents, including eSignatures and eMortgages,” Weaver said. “To be truly effective, though, you need a comprehensive strategy for handling all of the documents associated with loan origination and servicing.” According to the company, Paradatec’s clients include three of the 10 largest lenders and four of the 10 largest servicers in the U.S.

Hunt Mortgage names Bindiya Jain chief operating officer

HUNT Mortgage recently announced the addition of banking executive Bindiya Jain as its chief operating officer. Jain will oversee development of new mortgage business channels and drive efficiency to create further revenue for the Buffalo, New York-based subsidiary of HUNT Real Estate Corp. She will also manage administrative functions for the company. “We’ve experienced unprecedented growth at HUNT Mortgage in the last five years and now must expand our service delivery system and product offerings,” said Peter Hunt, chairman and CEO of HUNT Real Estate.

Jain joins HUNT after serving as chief lending officer at Quincy Credit Union, where she created formal policies in its residential and consumer lending businesses. She previously also held lending leadership positions at South Shore Bank and UniBank for Saving.

Standard Communities promotes Jessica Mackenzie to senior director

Affordable housing investor and developer Standard Communities recently announced the promotion of housing finance leader Jessica Mackenzie to senior director of capital markets. In the position, Mackenzie will be in charge of structuring and closing of the firm’s transaction financing. Mackenzie joined Standard Communities, which is based in Los Angeles and New York, in 2019 and has since financed over 30 deals with capitalization of more than $1.5 billion. Standard Communities portfolio consists of over 13,500 apartment units, of which close to 12,300 are affordable and workforce housing units.

Before joining Standard Communities, Mackenzie was a director in the community development finance group at Union Bank responsible for debt and equity financing of affordable housing.

Inlanta taps Kevin Laffey to spearhead national growth

Hand-out/Inlanta Mortgage

Pewaukee, Wisconsin-based Inlanta Mortgage promoted Kevin Laffey to senior vice president, sales and business development. Laffey previously held the role of regional production manager overseeing Iowa, Missouri and Kansas, and also co-led a branch in Kansas City with his wife. He was also a member for 10 years of Inlanta’s internal advisory board.

In his new position, Laffey will be responsible for further growing the company’s business nationwide. Inlanta currently has offices in 27 states. Before coming to Inlanta in 2011, Laffey held sales management positions at Wells Fargo and Bank of America and also operated his own independent mortgage company for several years.

New American Funding taps Brooke Anderson to lead national recruiting

New American Funding, based in Tustin, California, announced the hiring of mortgage executive Brooke Anderson as senior vice president, business development and national recruiting. Anderson will be in charge of national retail growth, recruiting and hiring new retail and call-center loan officers. She will also help oversee development of its digital recruitment platform.

Before joining New American, Anderson held the role of vice president of business development and recruiting at Academy Mortgage, where she facilitated communications between regional teams and recruiting to coordinate training and development. New American Funding currently has a servicing portfolio of over 221,000 loans totaling approximately $58.1 billion and has 167 offices nationwide.

Down Payment Resource hires Marcy Ash to manage partnerships

Atlanta-based Down Payment Resource, an aggregator and database for U.S. home-buying assistance programs, appointed Marcy Ash as director of strategic projects. An expert in housing finance solutions, Ash joins DPM from Huntington Bank, where as assistant vice president and senior product manager, she developed and managed its affordable lending products, working closely with the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to increase loan volumes for low- to moderate-income borrowers In her new role with DPR, Ash will manage relationships with state housing finance agencies and tap into her experience in affordable lending to develop other industry partnerships and strategies.

LRES adds former Fannie Mae manager Natalie Harrison as a director

Hand-out/LRES Corporation

Real estate and asset management services firm LRES appointed Natalie Harrison as director, vendor management, responsible for management of its panel of appraisers and experts. She will manage the company’s panel outreach, as well as onboarding, management and vendor profile maintenance. An expert in real-estate owned operations, Harrison comes to LRES, based in Orange, California, from Fannie Mae, where she spent a decade as REO auction asset manager. Before joining Fannie Mae, she also served as REO sales asset manager at Saxon Mortgage.

“Natalie has been able to expand our vendor coverage in areas where it had been historically difficult to attract new talent," said LRES president, Mark Johnson.

American Financial Resources hires Lauren Blackburn to head marketing

Mortgage lender American Financial Resources, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, hired Lauren Blackburn as director of marketing. In the role, Blackburn will oversee the company's marketing strategy. She joins the nationwide lender from First Hope Bank where she most recently held the title of assistant vice president, marketing officer, in charge of its annual marketing plans. At First Hope, she also held several other roles in its mortgage operations, including compliance opener, mortgage processor and operations support specialist, gaining first-hand experience of mortgage and underwriting operations.

First Community Mortgage adds Tracy Flesch in Alabama expansion

First Community Mortgage, a subsidiary of First Community Bank of Tennessee, recently added Tracy Flesch as vice president and mortgage originator. Flesch will help lead efforts in Huntsville, Alabama, where the lender plans to open a new office this spring. In his career, Flesch has closed over 1,800 loans and is licensed in 32 states, including Alabama and Tennessee. In 2021, First Community Mortgage funded nearly $3.5 billion in mortgages.