MBA Presents UBS with Commercial/Multifamily Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award

The Mortgage Bankers Association presented UBS with the 2021 Commercial/Multifamily Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award.

The announcement took place at MBA LIVE CREF21: Lending, Investing, Servicing and Technology Convention & Expo. UBS was selected as this year’s winner for having a comprehensive global diversity and inclusion (D&I) program, as well as for its innovative strategy that focuses on gender and ethnicity.  

“Applicants for our CMF D&I Leadership Award continue to identify innovative ways to boost their companies’ D&I programs,” said Susan Stewart, 2021 MBA Chair and CEO of SWBC Mortgage Corp., San Antonio Texas. “UBS’ global D&I program stood out thanks to its comprehensive program of employee retention, development, training and creating an inclusive culture.”

Chris LaBianca

“It is an honor to accept this year’s Diversity and Inclusion Award from the Mortgage Bankers Association, which acknowledges UBS’s commitment to not only recruiting candidates from diverse backgrounds, but encouraging career progression and retention,” said Chris LaBianca, Managing Director and Head of Commercial Mortgage Originations with UBS. “Our leadership regularly underscores the importance and benefits of a diverse workforce, while setting clear and holistic goals for this mission. As a firm we have worked hard to establish clearly defined metrics that track our progress in areas such as workforce diversity, supplier diversity, and financial transactions.”

For more information on UBS’ diversity and inclusion efforts, click here.

Now in its fifth year of recognizing member companies in commercial real estate finance, the MBA Commercial/Multifamily Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award was developed to celebrate company initiatives that were specifically developed and designed to increase internal diversity and inclusion within a company’s leadership and employee base. This award commends the hard work, dedication and creativity in the creation of exemplary programs that focus on achieving organizational diversity and inclusion.  

Company initiatives were scored by a group of judges consisting of MBA staff and a member company. The companies were scored based on quality of overall submission; identification of a target audience and annual goals; demonstration of a tangible benefit to participants and the overall enterprise; program replicability; innovative program approaches; and program success in broadening the culture of the organization through values of diversity and inclusion.