MBA Home For All Pledge Partner: BlackFin Group
(One in a series of profiles of MBA member companies that have signed the MBA Home For All Pledge, an initiative to promote inclusion in housing.)
BlackFin Group is a management consulting firm that specializes in innovation, technology and business optimization in the banking and mortgage banking industry. We are skilled in the successful execution of your firms’ critical initiatives by providing best-in-class resources that ensure project success. For more information, contact the company at (303) 524-1907, info@BlackFin-Group.com, or visit its website https://www.blackfin-group.com.
MBA NEWSLINK: Why did BlackFin Group sign the MBA Home for All Pledge?
SUHA BEIDAS ZEHL, BLACKFIN GROUP CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER: “I was in the audience when Kristy Fercho, MBA Chair and Head of Home Lending at Wells Fargo, announced the ‘Home for All’ initiative at the MBA Annual Convention & Expo. As a first generation immigrant, this initiative hits very close to home for me. I remember my parent’s struggle, then my own, to find affordable housing, to purchase that first home and to provide for the family. It encourages me that our industry is coming together and collaborating to, as Kristy put it, ‘promote and ensure greater racial equity and inclusion in housing.’
NEWSLINK: What is BlackFin Group doing to implement key provisions of the Home for All Pledge?
KEITH KEMPF, BLACKFIN GROUP CEO: Setting policies is the easier part; the harder part is aligning the organizations people, processes and technologies to implement those new policies. We are designing and implementing frameworks and offer strategies, methodologies and change management support that will allow industry firms who take the MBA’s pledge to achieve meaningful results. To achieve the goals the MBA has outlined will require lenders to set proper goals, and then create appropriate policies, processes, procedures and practices. BlackFin will support the industry in this effort.
NEWSLINK: How will you get your company to “walk the walk” as well as “talk the talk?”
KEMPH: Change is never easy for companies operating in the financial services space. For this initiative to be successful, lenders will need support as they implement their new policies. BlackFin Group offers an experienced team of professional consultants and project managers who can assist them in creating lasting change that will not only help the industry meet the MBA’s goals for homeownership, but also make the lender more profitable in the process.
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About the MBA Home For All Pledge
MBA recognizes and values the opportunities for working together as an industry to promote inclusion in housing. We believe that these opportunities can, and need to be, significantly expanded.
The Home for All Pledge represents our industry’s long-term commitment on a sustained and holistic approach to address racial inequities in housing. By signing, you are agreeing to be a champion for change in addressing the barriers to sustainable housing for persons and communities of color.
Through advocacy, partnerships, and connections within the industry, you pledge to support MBA’s efforts to ensure fair, equitable and responsible lending and affordable rental housing for minorities.
Pillars of the pledge include:
- Promote and support public policies and industry practices that advance minority homeownership and affordable rental housing
- Support market-based solutions through MBA’s place-based CONVERGENCE programs
- Champion Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in our workplaces and our industry
- Support inclusion in single-family and/or multifamily housing with similar actions that are not listed under the above three commitments
For more information about the MBA Home For All Pledge, visit https://www.mba.org/who-we-are/the-home-for-all-pledge.
