Category: Podcasts

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Never be Average. Aim to be Top Tier in Everything. An interview with Jack Karaszewski

 

In this episode of Lykken on Leadership we have Jack Karaszewski, EVP Business Development at XINNIX and he shares his decades of wisdom and experience within the mortgage industry.

About XINNIX, the Mortgage Academy

XINNIX aims to energize and transform individuals, teams and organizations to elevate their thinking, accelerate their performance and experience incredible results.

As the former president of five different mortgage companies, Jack has over 40 years of experience in markets across the country. His resume and sterling reputation of leadership, success and team building have made him one of the industry’s most respected and knowledgeable mortgage professionals.

When he was captain of his college basketball team at the University of Buffalo, he led his fellow players to two NCAA tournaments. Now, he uses his unparalleled understanding of the market to lead XINNIX customers toward success. Jack specializes in providing consultations with clients to guide them toward the programs and services that will fit their needs and deliver their desired ROI.

Jack lives with his wife Lynn in Alpharetta, Georgia and is the proud father of Jennie, Brian, and Eric. He is also grandfather to Luke and Julia. Jack has a passion for golf and spends his free time exploring the best courses across the country.

Excerpts from this Interview:

Listen: Defining Leadership...
Listen: Becoming one of the biggest buyers of mortgages in the country...
Listen: We never wanted to be average, we wanted to be top-tier in everything...
Listen: Everything rises and falls with leadership...
Listen: The four things to focus on that will generate revenue for you today...
Listen: $4500 per loan... $8900+ total cost origination... Focus on doing 5-7 things better...
Listen: Moving the middle tier up is how you hit a home run...
Listen: Hire the right people and give them the ability to succeed...
Listen: Contact information for Jack Karaszewski...

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What I think about, I talk about, I bring about…. Essential Leadership Skills with Tony Meola

In this interview, David Lykken interviews Anthony Meola about his experience as a leader spanning his career in the banking industry.

Tony Meola was the U.S. Consumer Operations executive for Bank of America.

In this role, he led holistic operation functions for the Consumer Banking and Legacy Asset Servicing businesses. Tony’s responsibilities included mortgage and specialty servicing operations, loss mitigation and liquidation for default mortgage servicing, collections and recovery, enterprise fraud and claims management, service delivery and enterprise customer complaints.

Tony has 27 years of leadership experience within the banking industry, including his previous position as CEO of Saxon Mortgage, a Morgan Stanley company.

In this role, he was responsible for all aspects of Morgan Stanley’s domestic, residential mortgage business strategy and operations. He originally joined Morgan Stanley in June 2007 as chief operating officer of its U.S. Residential Lending Operations. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley Tony has also held senior leadership roles at Washington Mutual, PNC Mortgage and Citigroup Mortgage.

Tony earned his B.S. degree in accounting from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in Newark, N.J. He is the executive sponsor of Bank of America’s Southern California Black Professional Group (BPG) chapter and the Women Leaders Network and an avid supporter of the company’s employee networks and Diversity and Inclusion efforts. He is a member of the faculty of the joint effort of the Ross Business School at University of Michigan and Bank of America in operational leaders development. He is also the former chairman of the Lender Leadership League at the Five Star Institute, a former member of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Residential Board of Governors and the Housing Policy Executive Committee. In addition, he is the author of the book 90 Days to Success as a Manager. In 2013, he was awarded the Five Star Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the mortgage industry.

Mr. Meola specializes in turn-around operations and is generally regarded in the industry as a problem solver and a dynamic leader.

Mr. Meola is the author of the book 90 Days to Success as a Manager, published by Cengage Learning and available at Amazon.com,Borders, Barnes and Noble and most book stores . His book is a virtual guide to get you up and running day one. 90 Days to Success as a Manager is your action plan regardless of your field. He also does Public Speaking engagements.

Topics Covered in this Interview:

  1. Listen: These two things really helped me out... Being well-thought out and understanding operating discipline and its values.
  2. Listen: The values of culture and how to create a mindset at a company... and understanding the concept of true north...
  3. Listen: What I think about, I talk about, I bring about...
  4. Listen: One of the things that happens to leaders is that they look at challenges in a negative fashion... definition of positive intent...
  5. Listen: How can I create value for you today? I was brought in to create a new way forward post the crisis...
  6. Listen: Here's what I think happens to companies who have that bell curve...
  7. Listen: The thing that I enjoy the most is helping people achieve their goals...
  8. Listen: Lateral thinking challenges us to think of all the disciplines...
  9. Listen:As you look at great leaders, there's a number of attributes that they have in common... and self awareness is at the top of the list...
  10. Listen: One of the biggest mistakes in leadership today...
  11. Listen: The key to becoming authentic... be true to yourself...
  12. Listen: How do you prepare for a staff meeting? How can you not think about that moment...
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Start Reaching Your Goals by Simply Raising Your Hand… Leading by Example with Faith Swartz

Great leaders can get their start by raising a hand in order to take the initiative to step up.

That's one of the great lessons in this interview with David Lykken and Faith Schwartz.

Faith Schwartz is a recognized leader in the housing finance industry, and she credits many great leaders spanning her 30+ year career for many of the leadership qualities she's picked up along the way.

As the owner of Housing Finance System Strategies, LLC, Faith operates as an advisor to leading organizations, public and private, to build a robust, sophisticated yet simple, mortgage lending experience.

Leading the HOPE NOW Alliance through the financial crisis was a career highlight which combined many skills needed to navigate the banking system, regulatory system, government agencies, angry public and Congress.

Recent awards include 2018 Housing Wire Vanguard and National Mortgage Professional Magazine, Most powerful women in Mortgage Banking, 2018.

Topics Covered in this Interview:

  1. Listen: Learning business both internally and externally...
  2. Listen: Leadership is about being an active listener...
  3. Listen: Becoming an expert and not being afraid of what you don't know...
  4. Listen: Qualities of great leadership...
  5. Listen: Wisdom for future leaders...
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Leadership in the 2019 Mortgage Industry with Joe Murin, Past President GinnieMae

 

As an advisor at Ainsworth Advisors, Joseph J. Murin is also currently the Chairman Emeritus of Chrysalis Holdings LLC and the Chairman of JJAM Financial Services LLC.  Mr. Murin joined ANC Acquisitions LP in July 2011 as its CEO. ANC is a Fortress Investment Group financial services company founded to provide products and services to the financial services industry.  ANC specialized in the areas of mortgage lending, mortgage servicing, asset-based lending, compliance, and analytics.  He is the former Chairman and Co-founder of The Collingwood Group LLC.  The Collingwood Group’s primary focus is in the financial services sector and offers business advisory services combined with access to decision makers, financial sponsors, corporate boards, and senior industry executives.

Prior to co-founding The Collingwood Group, Mr. Murin was President of the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae). He led the transformation of Ginnie Mae through a difficult time in the housing and mortgage arenas and provided much needed liquidity to the industry as it grew its portfolio from $350 billion to $840 billion.

Mr. Murin brings more than 40 years of diverse experience in the financial services, mortgage, and banking industries and experience that included the position of CEO of several large financial organizations.  He and his wife, Angela, reside in Pittsburgh and have two daughters and five grandchildren.

Excerpts from this interview:

 

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Investing in Others and Developing a Magnetic Personality with Gratitude – Barry Habib

If you’re in the mortgage industry, you've likely heard of Barry Habib. If you've been around for a while, then you've likely been inspired by Barry, too!

Barry is the CEO of MBS Highway; a company and platform created to help mortgage professionals and Real Estate Agents articulate the opportunity in the housing market for their clients, along with a better understanding of the interest rate environment.

Barry Habib was just named the top Real Estate forecaster by Zillow and Pulsenomics and has been presented with the Crystal Ball Award for the most accurate Real Estate forecasts out of 150 of the top economists in the US.

Barry has had many successful businesses that he has founded, grown, and sold. This includes Mortgage Market Guide, Healthcare Imaging Solutions, and Certified Mortgage Associates. During Barry’s mortgage sales career, he was recognized for having the highest annual origination production in the US on two occasions. Barry personally originated over $2 Billion dollars in mortgage loan production over his career.

He is also the Lead Producer and Managing Partner for “Rock of Ages” – a Broadway musical theatrical production, which was also released as a major film starring Tom Cruise. Barry also plays the part of the record producer in the movie.

For over 20 years, Barry is a well-known professional speaker on the financial and Real Estate markets.

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Leadership Skills Shared from a Seasoned Executive of the Fintech Sector – SA Ibrahim

When you aim to learn from proven leaders, you can tell almost immediately that what you're hearing is a wisdom that can only come after decades of being in leadership.

S.A. Ibrahim is a seasoned executive with almost 40 years of leadership experience in the fintech sector.

He was most recently the CEO of Radian Group (NYSE: RDN), a credit enhancement company that offers mortgage insurance, financial guaranty insurance for public finance, asset-backed and structured finance transactions, reinsurance and other financial services. During his 12 years at Radian, he led the team through a remarkable turnaround after the 2008 financial downturn that threatened the company’s $150 billion in global credit. In 2015, S.A. was named one of the “10 Best CEOs of Mid-Cap Companies” by ExecRank and TheStreet.

He closed his tenure following the industry-leading company’s most successful year to date in 2016 and was also honored for outstanding senior executive diversity with the Mortgage Bankers’ Association’s Diversity & Inclusion Award. Prior to Radian, S.A. served as CEO of GreenPoint Mortgage through a period of immense growth, taking the company from 500 to more than 5,000 employees and $6B to $60B in volume in only six years.

He also held a range of marketing, sales, financial, risk-management and senior executive positions at major institutions such as General Electric, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan-Chase and American Express after receiving his MBA from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Currently, S.A. works as an advisor and angel investor focused on socially-responsible technology startups.

As an advocate of diversity, inclusion and interfaith relations, S.A. is active in several educational, religious and policy related non-profit organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Middle East Institute, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the American-Jewish Committee, and the Muslim-Jewish Council. In 2004, he started the Nina and S.A. Ibrahim Foundation with his wife to promote interfaith relations and religious tolerance through student travel and exchange.

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Jess Lederman, the Mortgage Professional Handbook

Jess Lederman has published over forty books on the global financial markets, and is currently spearheading an industry-wide project, The Mortgage Professional's Handbook (mortgagebanking2020.com), which has raised over $125,000 for the ALS Therapy Development Institute of Cambridge, MA (als.net), the ALS Association (alsa.org) The MBA Foundation's Open Doors program to help families with seriously ill children, and MYHouse, which helps homeless youth.

Previously Jess was a co-founder of several national mortgage companies, including two of the first private-sector counterparts to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was also principal architect of several types of innovative financing in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors in the 1980s and 1990s.

In this episode of the Lykken on Leadership podcast, David interviews Jess and identifies several key leadership qualities and transferrable principles that are sure to help leaders of the future.

Excerpts from this Interview:

  1. Listen: What we went through with the mortgage meltdown is really a failure to understand leadership...
  2. Listen: A Leadership lesson in patience...
  3. Listen: When I went to Bear Sterns - you must be a very very rich man...
  4. Listen: Leaders learn real lessons from failures...
  5. Listen: Where there is change there is great opportunity...
  6. Listen: The culture of risk and return...
  7. Listen: There's so many aspects to siloed thinking that either leads people to take risk or to make less money...
  8. Listen: Know the details but the micro manager is going to drive away anyone but the mediocre...
  9. Listen: How do you help to instill passion...

References Made in this Interview:

MortgageBanking2020.com
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

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Marcia Davies on Leadership (COO of MBA, Founder of mPower)

On today’s broadcast we have as our special guest, Marcia Davies, Chief Operating Officer of the MBA and Founder of mPower, talking about keys to developing powerful partnerships between key executives within an organization.  

It can make the difference between success, mediocrity or, worse yet, failure!

When you examine the anatomy of strong leadership, you find powerful partnerships. No better example of this than our own trade association, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).  

Anyone familiar with the MBA is well aware of the powerful partnership between David Stevens, the MBA’s President and Marcia Davies, the MBA’s Chief Operating Officer.  Having worked together at three of our industry’s important organizations, Freddie Mac, FHA and now the MBA, David and Marcia have forged a powerful partnership that can serve as an example for many companies today.

Marcia Davies is Chief Operating Officer for the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and Founder of mPower.

As COO, Marcia is responsible for ensuring cross-organizational alignment and facilitating the implementation of strategic initiatives, as well as maintaining oversight of key organizational priorities. She is also the lead strategist for MBA’s external activities, providing leadership, guidance and overall management to the public affairs and marketing divisions. In addition, Marcia provides strategic direction and management of MBA’s Conferences, Membership, Education, Information Technology and Office Services divisions. She also provides management oversight to and is a Board member of MBA’s Opens Doors Foundation.

Read Full Bio

Topics Covered in this Interview:

When we Started Working Together it was like Cats and Dogs - Listen

Key Characteristics we Look for in People - Listen

Have the Right Person Working in the Right Job - Listen

How People can Surprise you with Compassion - Listen

Tips for Coping with Fluctuations in the Mortgage Industry - Listen

What to Look for when going through a Cycle of Compression - Listen

You Really Have to be Clear with What Your Role Is - Listen

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Rodrigo López, past Director of the MBA

If you've been listening to this podcast, you may begin to see the trends in how very successful leaders think and articulate their thoughts. Our guest today is no exception.

In this episode of the Lykken on Leadership podcast, David and Mark interview Rodrigo Lopez, a man who has a much longer list of leadership positions than space we have on this webpage to post them all!

Some of the past leadership roles Rodrigo has held include the following:

He has served as the past Chief Executive Officer and President of AmeriSphere Multifamily Finance, has been a Director of the Mortgage Bankers Association dating back to October 2009, served as a Member of the Board of Directors at Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and served as a Member of National Advisory Council at Fannie Mae.

In this interview, David and Mark focus on the topic of leadership and Rodrigo brings a very experienced and discerning opinion that makes this another interesting and thought-provoking interview.

Topics covered in this interview:

  1. Listen: Importance of Being a Good Steward
  2. Listen: Leaders offer a view of the Future
  3. Listen: Value of Leaders who are Good Listeners
  4. Listen: Inspired by People who Remind Us to Do the Right Thing
  5. Listen: Variety of Qualities of Servant Leadership
  6. Listen: The Biggest Challenge Facing Leaders Today
  7. Listen: If we could fix this one thing in all industries, we'd all be better off...
  8. Listen: The Focus for New Leaders
  9. Listen: I would recommend new leaders to innovate
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Christopher George, President and CEO of CMG Financial

David Lykken and Mark Jones interview Christopher George about his career in the mortgage industry.

As Founder, President and CEO, Christopher M. George has spent three decades cultivating an organization capable of sustaining and thriving through cyclical market fluctuations.

He accomplished this through responsible risk management while identifying and capitalizing on key emerging markets. George prioritizes regulatory compliance and champions industry and consumer advocacy through direct participation at the local, state and federal levels.

He serves as the Vice Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), a member of the MBA’s Board of Directors, past Chairman for California Mortgage Bankers Association (CMBA), a member of the CMBA's Board of Directors, and has served on many advisory boards and task forces within the industry.