In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’d like to celebrate some of the industry’s most powerful and influential female leaders. The acts, decisions, and positions they play in their respective companies have an impact on us and motivate us. Please note that the list is not in any specific order. It’s just a list of all the women who have had an impact on us, and we want to thank them for that. Thank you for all of your support on this Women’s Day and may we all achieve more this year.
Kristy Williams Fercho
Head of Home Lending at Wells Fargo
Kristy Fercho is executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo Home Lending. As head of Home Lending, Fercho oversees one of the nation’s leading combined home lenders and servicers, funding one of every twelve loans and servicing one of every eight loans in the country. Fercho leads a team of more than 25,000 mortgage professionals in sales, operations, servicing, capital markets, portfolio management, and related business, risk management, and supporting functions.
Reach Kristy on LinkedIn
Sonal Sharma
Senior Vice President, Bank Operations at Wintrust
Sonal is a highly influential, accomplished, and resilient financial services executive with 20+ years of experience delivering impactful results across multiple business lines, functions, and geographies. She has strong expertise in leading diverse, large-scale organizations across Operations, Risk & Compliance, Transformation, PMO, & Change Management. Sonal is an active sponsor and champion of diversity and inclusion, a positive work culture, and community. She is recognized as a forward-looking, agile executive and a credible strategic partner with outstanding people relationship management and communication skills.
Reach Sonal on LinkedIn
Christine Beckwith
President, COO & Master Coach at vision for success coaching
Christine is a President, Creator, Chief Operating Officer, and Master Coach of the fastest growing Sales Coaching Company in America, Christine has mastered her 30-year industry accolades by climbing to the very top of a national sales finance platform in the mortgage industry. She has won at every level of sales in her career and worked at a senior and executive level for nearly two decades, breaking many glass ceilings and amassing notoriety, a rapidly growing following, and proving that consistent excellence is obtainable.
Reach Christine on LinkedIn
Kim Hoffman
Head of Mortgage Operations at SoFi
Kim Hoffman is Head of Mortgage Operations at SoFi Finance company. She started her career in consumer finance and has experience in all consumer lending products. She helped customers save their business by monetizing their home equity and paying off ill-intending business partners. This one transaction changed the customer’s future and hers too. She saw the power of building wealth through homeownership, the security, and stability created through homeownership. Now she is focused on how to improve the mortgage lending experience.
Reach Kim on LinkedIn
Laura J. Brandao
President at American Financial Resources
Laura Brandao is a partner of American Financial Resources, where she serves as the President and is responsible for the sales, strategy, culture, and day-to-day operations of the Wholesale & Correspondent divisions. For the past 14 years, Laura has developed a mindset within the company to make it a personal responsibility of each employee to bring the families of AFR’s lending partner’s home. Laura has been described by her peers as the hardest working person they have ever met, and her team follows right behind her.
Reach Laura on LinkedIn
Thasunda Brown Duckett
President and Chief Executive Officer of TIAA
Thasunda is a Fortune 100 provider of a secure retirement and outcome-focused investment solutions to millions of people working in higher education, healthcare, and other mission-driven organizations. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of NIKE, Inc., Executive Leadership Council, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Jack and Jill of America, Inc. She founded The Rosie and Otis Brown Foundation in honor of her parents, which recognizes and rewards people who use ordinary means to empower and enhance their communities in extraordinary ways. Thasunda is committed to helping communities of color in closing wealth gaps, improving educational outcomes, and achieving career success.
Reach Thasunda on LinkedIn
Suzy Lindblom
Chief Operating Officer at First Guaranty Mortgage Corporation
Chief Operating Officer at First Guaranty Mortgage Corporation Suzy Lindblom is a business professional with four decades of leadership and management experience in mortgage banking. She is an enthusiastic problem solver with the business acumen to establish and manage high-performing, cross-functional teams, as well as to continuously improve processes and procedures. Suzy is an effective combination of strengths in large-scale national operations, strategic planning and succession planning, outstanding communication skills, and mentoring future leaders.
Reach Suzy on LinkedIn
Christy Moss
Head of Sales and Marketing at FormFree
Christy Moss is a dynamic mortgage banking executive with experience in business development, negotiation and sales management, customer relationship management, and business strategy consulting. She has key strengths such as converting strategy into results and effectively influencing and influencing lender and industry partner goals through a collaborative and consultative leadership approach. Her company, FormFree, continues to lead the digital transformation of the mortgage process, revolutionizing lending, and is approved for Day 1 Certainty with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s AIM (Asset Income Model). In addition, her company’s service helps lenders meet new federal regulations that require stronger borrower verification processes with the goal of preventing another crisis.
Reach Christy on LinkedIn
Katie Sweeney
CEO at AIME
As the CEO of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME), Katie oversees the day-to-day operations of the AIME team. She spearheads partnership development, membership growth initiatives, and business analytics. Previously, Katie served as the Senior Vice President at ARIVE where she successfully brought to market a revolutionary portal that provided an all-encompassing technology solution for wholesale brokers.
Katie’s contributions to the growth and success of the wholesale channel have been noted by HousingWire, who presented Katie as one of 2021’s Women of Influence within the mortgage industry.
Reach Katie LinkedIn
Nandita Bakhshi
President and CEO at Bank of the West
As President and CEO of Bank of the West, Nandita leads an outstanding team of people who believe in redefining banking for a better future. Bank of the West. a BNP Paribas company is part of a global network of banks in 72 countries making bold choices to leave the planet better off than we found it. Bank of the West is heavily invested in the sustainable energy transition. It is the only central U.S. bank with firm environmental policies in place that preclude the financing of fossil fuels, palm oil, and tobacco, among other industries.
Reach Nandita on LinkedIn
Sarah (Batangan) Gonzalez
President & Chief Operating Officer at Panorama Mortgage Group
She is a Results-driven leader offering 20+ years of assertive, compelling style proven to be both inspirational and profitable within a mortgage lending firm. Versatile strategist recognized for having superior organization skills to launch large-scale teams and projects progressive, decisive, and innovative and highly valued for expertise in interpreting corporate vision and strategy, translating objectives into actionable plans, and providing influential leadership to a global multi-functional staff. Articulate and persuasive with exceptional communication and training skills. She is revered by superiors, peers, and clients for being highly collaborative and interpersonal.
Reach Sarah on LinkedIn
Dr. Meg Myers Morgan
Certified Executive Coach, Assistant Professor and Award-Winning Author
Dr. Meg Myers Morgan is an expert in career development. She has helped countless mid-career women create and execute an ambitious career plan. She regularly speaks to audiences about developing a career, striving for satisfaction in work and life, and having a healthy relationship with ambition. She gave a notable TEDx Talk “Negotiating for Your Life” in 2016. Most Influential Women in the Mortgage Industry
Reach Meg on LinkedIn
Amy Kinsey
Chief Operations Officer at Terrydale Capital
Amy Kinsey is the Chief Operations Officer of Terrydale Capital. She helped start TerrydaleCapital, which has grown from 3 people to 16 people over the last 3 years despite COVID. Amy’s background is in commercial real estate finance. Her experience is very rare to find as she has been involved in and overseen 1,000+ transactions. She oversees operations at Terrydale Capital, which completed nearly 1/4 Billion in loan funding last year (2021). She is able to navigate capital markets as well as navigate the loan process with all capital market executions (CMBS, Bank, Agency, Debt Fund, Private Money, etc.) and has successfully helped develop a team of producers and loan closers that are quickly being identified as best in class.
Reach Amy on LinkedIn
