This year, we have witnessed the highest engagement from women’s networks in the industry’s history with an increase in women’s leadership events, awards, and overall participation in women’s networking activities. We are proud to honor a few of those in this issue and encourage you to continue the trend with women’s leadership growth in 2020.
Highlights from mPowering You 2019
This year’s mPowering You summit by mPower brought together 500 attendees and high profile speakers to support women’s leadership growth. In its four years since Marcia Davies started the organization, mPower has grown to over 16,000 members with 30 regional or national events throughout the year. Their national summit is something particularly spectacular as so many women and men gather to devote an entire day to women’s empowerment.
In Marcia’s opening session, she shared four key lessons about what it means to “take a stand,” which was the theme of the conference and a message I thought worth sharing with our readers who missed it. The first lesson was to “stand out.” Marcia explained that we can’t wait for someone to notice us for a promotion or to invite us to have a seat at the leadership table. We must rise up, displaying our unique strengths, and earn our seat at the table. Secondly, we need to “stand up” as a leader no matter our position or situation, and we don’t need to wait for anyone to tell us when or how to stand up as a leader. Third, she says to “stand strong” when we witness workplace bias or an opportunity to courageously and respectfully bring up an issue that will support equality in the workplace. The last lesson to “take a stand,” she encouraged women to build their networks with other women and support one another by connecting regularly. For our readers who are members of the MBA, I encourage you to participate in the mPower online community for greater connections and inspiration.
Highlights from the Women in Technology Panel at Digital Mortgage
This year’s Digital Mortgage was one of the richest conferences I attended this year. They pack a lot into a few days, so the FOMO is real, but I highly recommend this conference to anyone who hasn’t been. I had the pleasure of moderating the ‘Not Your Typical Millennial Panel’ with speakers Josh Lehr, Industry Development Manager of Mortech and Jeremy Potter, Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation at Quicken Loans and discussed perceived barriers to entry for millennials and how to leverage technology to optimize communication and the customer experience.
I judged a tech demo of the newest industry products alongside Jesse Decker, a technology consultant and former executive at Cloudvirga and Roostify. Jesse also led a panel session, ‘The Future of Mortgage Tech’ with the Women in Mortgage Tech. In this video interview, Jesse goes over some of the highlights of her panel.
‘The Future of Mortgage Tech’ panel spanned topics like barriers to adopting new technology, what we’re seeing on the horizon of mortgage technology, and how women are impacting mortgage technology and how we can celebrate and nurture that community.
Jesse mentions some key takeaways including opportunities for adoption of new technologies, consolidation in the industry, collaboration and the importance of data, and interestingly, how mortgage companies are starting to see themselves as data companies, and how diversity (women and all demographics) is really contributing to moving the industry forward. Watch the full interview here. https://youtu.be/W1IgVcxx5ws
Highlights From Women with Vision
2019 Women With Vision Award Winners
In a world where the spotlight on women’s professional development and accomplishments are at historically high levels, we are proud to present a new award. Born from peer and employee nomination, award selection is made by the combined executive and sponsorship teams of 20/20 Vision for Success Coaching.
The women you see on this list are at the forefront of their companies and are leading the industry in the areas of innovation, leadership, ingenuity, and transformation of their companies. Each of these women has been endorsed by our industry, some by multiple nominations, as peers have spoken up to say that they possess the passion and vision that will carry the torches of a brighter future for generations to come.
Our combined hope and goal with this inaugural annual award is to elevate the voices of women looking to a future with hope and excitement.
These are the women who best represent the philosophy inherent in the tag line for this award: To Truly See You Must First Have A Vision.
Here is the complete list of Women With Vision award winners for 2019. Please join us in congratulating these wonderful professionals! To learn more about each winner, check out the event page here.
Each woman who won this award was invited to an acceptance ceremony at the Vision Summit in Tampa, Florida on September 25th, 2019. Thirty-four women were awarded in person and all award winners were sent a trophy and gift, in addition to this feature article in the Mortgage Women Magazine.
Congratulations!
What’s NEXT?
NEXT women’s mortgage tech summit is a biannual technology conference for senior executives in mortgage lending. It features lender-centric educational content, with sessions that cover topics such as compliance, production, sales, corporate culture, marketing and operations, among others. Their next two summits are:
#NEXTDC19 was held Nov 18-19 and is designed for women executives to connect with housing policy experts, agency heads and fintech leaders to build business strategies around the changes coming out of Washington DC. With all the headlines around Housing Reform, GSE privatization, VA lending, QM patch expiration and a renewed interest in private capital, women execs want to team up in our small-group environment to make plans for every scenario.
#NEXTWINTER20 is Feb 24-25 in Dallas and is our regularly scheduled summit for women execs to share intel on operations, production, compliance, servicing, marketing or any other business issues they select for the agenda. We will have sessions, tech demos and just added for #NEXTWINTER20, we’re introducing small-group round table luncheon with each table dedicated to discussion on specific topics.
Mortgage Girlfriends
MortgageGirlfriends.com held its 14th Mastermind Retreat the first week in October 2019. The theme this year was “Potential-Purpose-Power” – and over the 2-day event, mortgage women from 36 states participated in business planning workshops and mastermind group discussions, with 10 awesome speakers leading the way. The Mortgage Girlfriends’ events are EXCLUSIVELY for women in the mortgage industry with coaching sessions, networking, idea exchanges, and marketing strategies—focusing on the unique ways women conduct their mortgage practices. Visit the website for a video tour of what it’s all about.
