mPower Events Expand

PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.–MBA Promoting Opportunities for Women to Extend their Reach, or mPower, expanded its programming this week with another well-attended event here at the MBA Independent Mortgage Bankers Conference.

The event, featuring Lisa Sun, CEO and founder of Project Gravitas, attracted nearly 100 attendees on Jan. 24. Sun discussed her challenges in founding Project Gravitas, a “confidence company” that has patented innovations in women’s apparel and styling.

Sun described her personal journey-the daughter of entrepreneurs. She said working for her parents and her early years with McKinsey and Co. helped shape her outlook toward business, people and life.

“At every point in my career, someone has pushed me to my potential,” Sun said. “That’s a very special thing.”

While working at McKinsey, Sun received a review that said she “lacked gravitas.” In trying to understand that “weird piece of advice,” she learned that “looking at yourself from within is the most important thing you can do.”

Sun describes Project Gravitas as “an emotional call to action.” Launched in 2013, within two months her company’s clothing had been featured in O, Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, and business took off.

“The ‘Oprah bump’ is real,” Sun said.

The dressing room, Sun said, is a microcosm for life. “It’s a place where all our demons come out,” she said. “We see our flaws while others see how beautiful we are. And it’s like that in life–we have to see the positive in ourselves.”

Project Gravitas, Sun said, is the “reminder that we have the choice to become confident.”

For MBA Chief Operating Officer Marcia Davies, the growth of mPower confirms her belief that women are a growing and increasingly important force in the real estate finance industry. Since formally launching mPower this past October, more than 700 women (and men) have joined. “The express approval of MBA doing something [like mPower] on a broader scale was really overwhelming,” she said.

Referencing the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. and other cities this past weekend, Davies noted, “When we want to get organized, we get organized.”

Davies notes that according to the Harvard Business Review, women are behind the “vast majority” of a household’s financial decisions–from purchases of home furnishings, vacations, vehicles and electronics to decisions about mortgages and other loans. Yet businesses don’t reflect that fact. A 2016 Urban Institute study found that while single women often have lower incomes, carry more debt and have lower credit scores, they are more likely to pay their mortgage than their single male counterparts. Single women also outpace single men as first-time and repeat homebuyers.

mPower began at the MBA 2015 Annual Convention & Expo in San Diego, when Davies organized an informal get-together or women attending the conference to meet for lunch and facilitate connections. She invited 85 women, but nearly 200 showed up. At the MBA Annual Convention & Expo in Boston this past October, the mPower event, featuring MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, drew 450 people.

Other demographic studies underscore the need for groups such as mPower, noting while women have increased their representation in the workforce, they are still striving to overcome barriers to ascending the promotion ladder–as well as perceptions of that struggle. In its January 2016 Executive Summary report, The Industry Gender Gap, the World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, found that women make up 43 percent of the financial services industry, but occupy only 20 percent of senior roles and just 9 percent of CEO roles.

And the Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., reported last year that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of women say obstacles that make it harder for women than men to get ahead in the workforce continue to exist–but fewer men (41 percent) think women still face those obstacles.

“Women are under-represented in every aspect of business,” Davies said. “The industry should recognize women as both a target market and as leaders. As an industry, we need to instill a culture of diversity that will benefit the industry and consumers alike. Diversity and profitability can go hand in hand.”

The mPower platform links professionals in the real estate finance industry, but specifically targets the interests and issues of professional women. Currently it is open only to MBA members, but there are plans to open the platform to non-members in 2017. mPower offers communication about MBA events, resources and information, and also features an mPower members-only forum for discussions. Any MBA member can join by signing up at https://www.mba.org/get-involved/mpower.

mPower continues to expand its offerings, recently forming an advisory group of eight MBA staffers to flesh out the mPower platform. The group brainstormed about networking events, how best to share information that would be valuable to the association’s women members and how to encourage them to make connections with other women in the industry.

mPower has also increased its events at a number of MBA conferences this spring, beginning with the event here at IMB. Other conferences this year with an mPower component include the MBA National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Expo, the MBA CREF/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo; the MBA National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference & Expo; the MBA National Secondary Market Conference & Expo; and the MBA Commercial/Multifamily Servicing and Technology Conference.

Additionally, at the MBA 2017 Annual Convention & Expo, mPower will host an all-day event on Saturday, Oct. 21.

(Lesley Hall contributed to this story.)