In this Girlfunds episode, Finance of America Companies CEO Patti Cook joins us for another episode of the Women of Influence series that spotlights the latest accomplishments of our award winners. As a 2021 Woman of Influence, Cook has been a pioneer in financial services since her earliest days in the industry. Over the course of her career, Cook has held executive roles at numerous companies, including Prudential, JPMorgan, and Freddie Mac.

Cook shares her personal journey for how she got into the industry, as a woman in the finance space who has risen to the highest level of her business. She also addresses one of her most notable accomplishments — taking the company public in the midst of a global pandemic. Now, as CEO, Cook highlights how Finance of America helps advance women into leadership positions and offers other women in the industry advice on how to advance their own careers.

This Girlfunds episode continues the Women of Influence podcast miniseries with 2020 Woman of Influence Crystal Sumner, who serves as head of legal, compliance, and risk at Blend, discusses the company’s recent program announcement to increase access to housing and financial services. 

Sumner shares the trends and topics that she is keeping a close eye on, such as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it is having on the ability to qualify for a mortgage, specifically in regard to minority homeownership.  She also touches on how more consumers feel comfortable with online transactions and the increased adoption of RON legislation

This Girlfunds episode continues the Women of Influence podcast miniseries with Snapdocs' Camelia Martin to talk about the latest changes in digital closings. As Head of Industry and Regulatory Affairs at Snapdocs, Martin keeps a close eye on the rapidly changing digital landscape in the mortgage market, especially when it comes to how digital changes are progressing in government adoption.

When she was named a 2020 Woman of Influence, Martin worked at Falcon Capital Advisors, where she served as managing director of Digital Mortgage Advisory. Throughout her career, Martin has led industry-wide digital mortgage initiatives that have directly supported eNote acceptance programs for key participants such as Ginnie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Martin is a former MERSCORP executive. She also played a pivotal role in the implementation and adaptation of digital mortgages at MERSCORP. 

During the podcast, she talks about her latest role at Snapdocs and also discusses the current state of the closing industry. 

This Girlfunds episode continues the Women of Influence podcast miniseries with Courtney Graham, who was a 2020 Women of Influence and is a 2021 Marketing Leader. Graham serves as chief marketing officer at Princeton Mortgage where she focuses on scaling the company culture to support its explosive national market expansion. 

Graham is also the driving force behind the creation of Princeton Mortgage’s marketing machine that has been a large driver for increased revenue and production for the mortgage bank. During the interview, Graham talks about her current role as CMO and how she has helped the company achieve record growth.

She wraps by discussing some recent marketing trends that she is closely following and what she thinks it will take to get more women in the industry.

2020 Woman of Influence AJ Barkley joins HousingWire’s Daily's Women of Influence podcast miniseries, which spotlights the program’s winners over the years. Barkley, who is the Neighborhood Lending and Community Lending Executive at Bank of America, discusses her passion to drive successful homeownership among low-to-moderate-income borrowers, underserved communities, and multicultural borrowers in all economic situations.

Along with her main role at Bank of America, Barkley serves as the co-executive sponsor of the Black Professional Group of North Texas and launched the Black Women Ready to Lead initiative. She also shares what her work has been doing over the past year and what she thinks it will take to get more women and diversity into the industry.

This Girlfunds episode continues with the Women of Influence podcast miniseries and features 2020 HW Woman of Influence and Mr. Cooper Group Chief People and Communications Officer Kelly Ann Doherty. 

Within just three years at Mr. Cooper, Kelly Ann Doherty was promoted from senior vice president of corporate communications to the chief communications officer, a member of the executive team, and now serves as their chief people and communications officer. During the episode, she dives into her career growth and her thoughts on how to get more women and diversity in the industry, especially in prepositions of leadership. 
 
 She also talks about the latest projects and initiatives that she is working on and passionate about, along with why she thinks it is important for people to find things outside of the office to support and serve in. 

Today’s episode of Girlfunds continues the latest guest on the Women of Influence podcast miniseries, 2020 Woman of Influence Courtney Poulos, who is the Broker/Owner of ACME Real Estate and co-founder of ACME Florida.

Poulos began selling real estate in 2005 and has remained dedicated to passing on her knowledge of the real estate market, since then having inspired women to take charge of their future through real estate investment. When Poulos was first named a 2020 Woman of Influence, she was only the Broker/Owner of ACME Real Estate, launching ACME Florida this year. During the interview, she talks about the launch of the brokerage and explores the unique trends happening in the Florida housing market. 

As a mentor to any agents, she also talks about how competitive the market is for real estate agents right now and how they’re staying at the top of their game. 

This Girlfunds episode continues the HousingWire Daily Women of Influence podcast miniseries. The episode features 2020 HW Woman of Influence and OJO Labs Chief Marketing Officer Karen Starns. She was also named a 2021 HousingWire Market Leader for her work transforming the fast-growing brand into a real estate powerhouse.

Starns has more than 20 years of experience building two of the biggest names in consumer tech, Amazon and Microsoft, giving her a unique perspective on the tech developments in the real estate industry. During the episode, Starns shares her thoughts on the state of tech in the housing industry compared to other tech industries, addressing the idea that housing has been historically behind when it comes to tech. 

Introducing HousingWire’s Women of Influence series, which belongs to the HousingWire Daily podcast. As Girlfunds comes to a close, each Women of Influence episode will be featured in GirlFunds. Girlfunds will soon say farewell but listeners can tune into HousingWire Daily to listen to more insightful interviews from the housing industry’s most talented women.
 
 HW+ Managing Editor Brena Nath interviews one of HousingWire's remarkable Women of Influence on their latest contributions to the industry, the women they look up to, and how they're moving markets forward.
 
 This first episode features 2020 Woman of Influence Laura Grannemann, vice president of Strategic Investments at Rocket Community Fund, as she discusses how COVID-19 has starkly highlighted inequity in housing across the country. 

We are teaming up with our sponsor, Citi, to bring you this episode of Girlfunds. We’re excited to have two amazing guests join us from Citi this week: we have Larissa Longchamp and Desireé Rideaux, and each is vice president, strategic markets business development officer.

During the episode, Longchamp and Rideaux talk about their best piece of financial advice, define what community lending is and share some common misconceptions around programs designed to help low-to-moderate-income borrowers. They also discuss how listeners can help bring more awareness to their own peer groups on the realities of buying a home for people who think it's impossible. 

Here are two Girlfunds takeaway tips from the episode, as Longchamp and Rideaux touch on the best piece of money know-how that they’ve ever received:

“The best piece of financial advice that I've ever received is to always live below my means and to save for a rainy day. I know that's such a cliche type of statement, but it's helped me through my entire adult life,” said Rideaux.

“I have two that [are] tied for best... Look at money as a tool. And when you do that, you see it as something that you can use to get you to where you want to be or to reach a goal. I like that because it takes some of the emotion out of making financial decisions. The second one is to just set individual savings goals and when you save, save in buckets,” said Longchamp. 

Join the two best friends who met as financial journalists at HousingWire, Brena Nath, a twenty-something first-time homebuyer with her husband and pups, and Sarah Wheeler, an empty nester on her third home, every week for our girls night focused on everything from affording your best friend’s wedding to how to turn your side hustle into your main hustle. Each week, Girlfunds will have a special guest join us as we intertwine finance and friendship. And don’t worry, you don’t have to have your finances all together to join our girls nights. We’re all in this together to learn - women supporting women - and in the words of our producer, so we can all be #confidentqueens.