Rob Chrisman is Senior Advisor to STRATMOR Group’s Capital Markets advisory team that focuses on helping clients upgrade their secondary marketing methods and infrastructure. His market commentary on industry developments is one of the industry’s most widely read publications — more than 70 thousand mortgage professionals receive “The Chrisman Commentary” each day. Chrisman began his career in mortgage banking — primarily capital markets — more than 37 years ago. In addition to owning his own advisory practice, Chrisman LLC, he also serves on the advisory boards of several financial services companies, including AXIS AMC (CA), Inheritance Funding Corporation (CA), Sovereign Lending Group (CA), Radius Financial Group (MA), and the California Mortgage Bankers Association. Chrisman holds a BS from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an MBA from UC Berkeley and is a regular guest on The Chrisman Commentary podcast.
Tom Finnigan joined STRATMOR Group after serving as President/CEO of the mortgage banking units of FirstMerit Bank and Huntington Bank, and as a senior mortgage banking executive at Integra Bank and Landmark Savings Association. He has over 30 years of comprehensive mortgage banking experience, with a particular focus on mortgage banking operations in a bank environment. In his mortgage banking executive roles, Tom built mortgage sales organizations and developed third party production channels, direct origination via call center and relocation finance. He also led development of secondary marketing strategies, servicing, loss mitigation and servicing asset management, production operations and IT, construction lending, bank mortgage portfolio management and affiliated title company operations. Tom is a past president of the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association and the Mortgage Bankers Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania, served on the Residential Board of Governors of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, and was a founding board member of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Pennsylvania. He has a BS in Accounting from The Pennsylvania State University.
Jeff Babcock leads STRATMOR Group’s mergers and acquisitions practice. Prior to joining STRATMOR, he was with the Robert A. McNeil Company, where he co-managed the mortgage banking subsidiary. Previously, Jeff was a co-founder of PME Mortgage Insurance where he was responsible for national sales, lender marketing and secondary marketing. Jeff participated in the development of the first mortgage conduit (Pennie Mae) and the original mortgage pool insurance product for the Bank of America’s pioneering mortgage-backed pass through security. Jeff’s mortgage banking experience also includes positions at Security Pacific Mortgage, Wells Fargo Bank and a start-up called On-Line Decisions (a subsidiary of Inland Steel Company, which developed some of the first interactive financial models for corporate America). Jeff received undergraduate and MBA degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.
Jim Cameron has executed a broad range of assignments for STRATMOR Group’s clients focused on benchmarking and performance measurement, strategic planning, production franchise valuation, merger and acquisition advisory services, ad hoc market surveys, financial reporting templates and litigation support. Cameron is widely known for his role in the industry standard benchmarking study known as the MBA and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtables (“PGR”) Program. Cameron holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accountancy from the University of Notre Dame.
Matt Lind joined STRATMOR Group in 1988 and has lead responsibility for the firm’s business strategy consulting practice. He is widely known throughout the industry as a leading strategic thinker, as an innovator in the financial analysis of mortgage production operations and as an articulate and provocative speaker. Over the past ten years, Matt has led major strategic planning and operations consulting assignments for many mortgage banking organizations. He also led the strategic planning effort for MERS. Prior to joining STRATMOR, Matt was Senior Vice President for Diversified Operations MONY Financial Services (New York) where he had executive responsibility for all major non-insurance businesses including mortgage banking. Prior to MONY, he headed corporate planning and development at The Travelers, worked in Washington, D.C. for the Office of Management and Budget, and was Head of Policy Development and Executive Director of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. He was also an instructor of Electromagnetic Theory at M.I.T. Matt is a graduate of M.I.T. and holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.
Senior Advisor Brett McCracken’s primary focus is consulting with banking and fintech clients on strategic direction and initiatives. His client work includes responsibility for go-to-market strategies, new opportunity acquisition, process analysis, complex front-end workflow design, UI/UX direction, brand management, and the consumer experience for both consumer direct and retail lending operations. His most recent projects include helping clients design business process models and adaptative incubation funnels for marketing initiatives tied to either a unified tech stack or disparate data systems. McCracken also works with lenders to understand the importance of secret shopping in efforts to analyze and improve their customers’ experiences with them, and he is cited as an industry expert on the topic.
Len Tichy heads STRATMOR Group’s IT Advisory Services practice. His career in financial systems began in 1983 when he founded Bankers Microsystems, Inc., a regional provider of mortgage loan production systems. In 1988, he founded Lakewood Corporation, the premier mortgage origination in the U.S., where he served as CEO until its sale to EDS in 1995. Len later became SVP of Strategic Planning and Development at Waterfield Mortgage where he ran the Direct Lending Division and launched its end-to-end private label fulfillment outsourcing business.
Since joining STRATMOR in 2006, Len has led over 30 lenders on LOS-related assignments. Len has played a lead role in over 170 mortgage LOS implementations during his career and authored several feature articles on related topics for Mortgage Banking Magazine and other publications. Len was also a charter member of XML Mortgage Partners, an ad hoc industry organization that formed and launched MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization). He is a graduate of Ohio University and holds an M.A. in Organization and Management from Antioch University.
Garth Graham was a high-producing loan originator and retail manager before starting mortgage.com which, in 1996, became the first company to originate a mortgage on the internet. Three years later, in 1999, with internet originations of over $1 billion per year, mortgage.com completed an IPO and a year later was sold to ABN AMRO. At ABN, Garth had executive positions in consumer direct, marketing and the mortgage.com consumer direct platforms. Garth has given more than 100 speeches on mortgage finance, including corporate events, keynotes and panel moderation. Garth is adept at using real time interactive tools, including audience polling and multi-media interactions through personal mobile devices.
Sue Woodard has more than 30 years’ experience in the financial services and mortgage industry. Having held many executive and leadership positions throughout her career, Woodard’s specialties are in customer experience, operationalizing excellence in the customer and employee journey, content strategy, and developing personal brand and presence via speaking, media and social media. Woodard started her career at the ground level in financial services, became a top producing originator, then leveraged her knowledge to become a highly acclaimed industry speaker, subject matter expert and technology executive. Sue has been awarded numerous industry honors, including the NMP Most Powerful Women in Mortgage Banking, the MPA HOT 100 list, the Housing Wire Vanguard Award, and the NMP Most Innovative Award.
With more than 20 years of experience in mortgage and banking technology, Mike Seminari has the know-how and the vision to bring insights and technology together to help lenders dominate in the arena of Customer Experience. Seminari has risen to become one of the industry’s leading authorities on Customer Experience through his speaking engagements at major industry conferences, his contributions to STRATMOR-led workshops, his appearances on industry podcasts and in video interviews. He also shares actionable insights in his monthly “Customer Experience Tip” and is a key resource in STRATMOR’s Customer Experience engagements. Based in Los Angeles, Mike received his undergraduate degree in Finance from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Lisa Springer is a Senior Partner and the Chief Executive Officer of STRATMOR Group, the mortgage industry’s premier data-driven advisory firm. As CEO, Springer provides strategic direction and leadership including oversight of all corporate initiatives, sales and marketing strategies, client experience, advisory services, knowledge sharing programs and STRATMOR’s technology and data strategies. Springer has more 30 years of experience in mortgage professional services and technology arenas and is a recipient of the HousingWire Vanguard Award. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Regis University where she earned the John S. Brennon award for excellence in Business Administration, and she earned her certification for Customer Experience through Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado.
Nicole Yung
Nicole Yung leads the company’s data and analytics efforts. Yung is responsible for the team that executes STRATMOR’s programs and oversees the analysts who conduct financial modeling, benchmarking and valuation tasks conducted by STRATMOR in its pursuit of timely and relevant mortgage industry data. Yung is best known for her work on STRATMOR’s widely known and often cited Technology Insight® Study and Compensation Connection® Study. It was Yung who developed the benchmark Lender Loyalty Score® analysis that has become the industry standard for lenders in determining vendor success, and her team works hand-in-hand with the MBA to produce the industry leading PGR: MBA and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtables Program. Yung holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Centre College and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Southern Methodist University.
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