Kristy Fercho Takes Charge

(This article appears in the MBA Annual Convention Show Guide. It has been shortened for NewsLink.)

This weekend, when the Mortgage Bankers Association convenes in San Diego for its Annual Convention & Expo, it will install Kristy Williams Fercho as its first Black Chairman and only its fourth female to hold the position.

Expect her to hit the ground running. Because throughout her life and career, Kristy has shown a remarkable ability to shift gears, adapt and shine—qualities that have served her well.

Kristy has the distinction of being the first—and only—Black woman to lead the mortgage business at two major lenders—first, at Flagstar Mortgage (2017-2020), and currently as executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo Home Lending, overseeing one of the nation’s leading combined home lenders and servicers, funding one of every 12 loans and servicing one of every eight loans in the country. She leads a team of more than 25,000 mortgage professionals in sales, operations, servicing, capital markets, portfolio management and related business, risk management and supporting functions.

Kristy has served in volunteer capacities with MBA since 2017, as a member of the Board of Directors, Co-Chair of the Affordable Housing Committee, Chair of the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and, for the past two years, on the leadership ladder—as vice-chair and chair-elect, respectively. Now, she says she is ready, as MBA Chairman for the 2022 fiscal year, to help guide MBA and its members through an ever-changing mortgage landscape.

“It’s not because I’m Black, or that I’m a female; it’s because I worked my tail off and my peers have recognized the kind of contributions I can make to this industry,” Kristy said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to lead MBA and give back to them, just as they’ve given to me.

Kristy graduated from the University of Southern California in 1988 with a degree in finance and went to work immediately with Baxter Healthcare in Los Angeles, selling hospital supplies. Over the next six years she earned several promotions and picked up a variety of experience, moving into sales management, then human resources and finally Total Quality Management, devising continuous improvement strategies for the company’s manufacturing facilities.

Throughout her career, Kristy continued to learn—and reinvent herself. From Baxter, Kristy joined Pepsico, which over the next eight years involved several relocations and more promotions. While working full-time, Kristy also earned her master’s degree in the Executive Program at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

From Pepisco, Kristy moved to Fannie Mae as head of Human Resources, supporting the company’s Single-Family business. By 2007, she was heading the company’s National Business Center, and over the next 10 years held numerous positions leading customer management.

In 2016, Kristy joined Flagstar as President of Mortgage—the first Black woman to run a major mortgage operation. Kristy’s impact was immediate—under her leadership, Flagstar’s mortgage business expanded to 87 retail home lending centers and 2,300 correspondent and broker relationships.

It was at Flagstar that Kristy became more involved with the Mortgage Bankers Association. Over the next few years, Kristy immersed herself in MBA, serving as vice chair of its Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, co-chair of the Affordable Housing Council and a member of its Residential Board of Governors. In early 2019, she joined the leadership “ladder” as Vice Chairman.

In August 2020, Kristy joined Wells Fargo as Executive Vice President and Head of Mortgage. “Kristy is a customer-first business leader with deep home lending experience. She has been an inspiring and vocal leader across the mortgage industry while driving transformational growth at Flagstar,” said Mike Weinbach, CEO of Consumer Lending at Wells Fargo. “Buying a home remains one of the most important financial decisions our customers will make in their lifetime, and Kristy is the right person to help us ensure that no one can do it better for them than Wells Fargo.”

This weekend, Kristy Fercho inherits the Chairmanship of MBA—following a year that has seen a tumultuous election cycle and a stubbornly persistent coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 700,000 Americans and infected nearly 40 million.

Kristy says as Chairman, her platform will include two priorities. One is to continue outgoing Chairman Susan Stewart’s platform to increase minority homeownership. Her second priority is improving the diversity of the workplace and the industry. “The one thing that all the research will tell you about successful endeavors in expanding minority homeownership—there is a ‘trusted advisor’ element,” she said. “Real estate is local and you have to be in those communities. Strategies like MBA CONVERGENCE starts to drive strategies on the importance of being on the ground and local. So, we have to diversify and add loan officers and brokers who are serving those communities.”

Kristy comes into the new fiscal year brimming with optimism about the future of MBA and the real estate finance industry.

“We’ve come out of this housing crisis very strong,” she said. “After the last crisis [2008] I thought I would never see another one of these in my lifetime, and here we are again but it obviously looks very, very different. The fact that we’ve fully regained GDP from where it was in the first quarter of 2020; and unemployment is somewhat lower—wherever you go, employers are looking to hire; so, it’s going to sort itself out over the next couple of quarters. I think we’re going to continue to be in this low interest rate environment, which is going to continue to spur a strong origination market.”

Kristy said work remains on improving housing supply, “especially in some communities it’s reaching dire proportions for which we need real solutions. But again, I’m hoping that having an aligned industry—the Administration; non-profits; lenders; trade associations—that we can gain ground on some of these systemic issues and create policy changes that are necessary. If we can address the supply issue, we’re going to continue to see a really robust market. I like the outlook of the mortgage industry.”