#MBATech23: MBA Honors 2023 NewsLink Tech All-Stars
(MBA Vice Chair Laura Escobar (c) presents MBA NewsLink Tech All-Star Awards to Christina Randolph (l) and Rob Chrane at #MBATech23 in San Jose, Calif. Not pictured: Gabe Minton.)
SAN JOSE, Calif.—The Mortgage Bankers Association awarded the MBA NewsLink Tech All-Star Award on Monday to three visionary leaders in the mortgage technology industry.
This year’s honorees are Christina Randolph, Senior Director of Partner Strategy and Integration with Freddie Mac, McLean, Va.; Gabe Minton, Executive Vice President and CIO of Mortgage Connect, Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Rob Chrane, Founder & CEO of Down Payment Resource, Atlanta.
Since 2002, the MBA NewsLink Tech All-Star Awards have celebrated industry leaders who have made outstanding contributions in mortgage technology.
“In today’s economy, financial institutions are placing a premium on the ability of technology to expand homeownership, fundamentally improve the customer experience and/or reduce costs,” said Rick Hill, MBA Vice President of Industry Technology. “All three of this year’s Tech All-Star award winners have focused on one or more of these needs and has successfully moved the needle forward. They are all richly deserving of this honor.”
Christina Randolph, Freddie Mac
Christina Randolph leads efforts to enhance the lending experience for clients and consumers by optimizing the distribution of our tools and capabilities within software partner platforms used by Freddie Mac clients. She plays a critical role in surveilling the fintech landscape for partnership opportunities with data verification providers that will help lower risk and further digitize the mortgage industry.
She and her team work directly with the software partners to implement solutions so they can save time, money and resources, and deliver a superior borrower experience through advancements in automation and data integration.
Gabe Minton, Mortgage Connect
Gabe Minton is an adamant believer in the power of technology to not only alter the status quo, but to turn it on its head. Smart tech is a concept he has dedicated his near-30-year career as a longtime mortgage executive and chief information officer.
Minton has been recognized throughout the mortgage industry in the past for his hand in the creation of MISMO, but he continues to push for change. Now, he is working tirelessly on two fronts to effectuate change to impact the entire mortgage landscape.
First, is uniform adoption of standards in both title and appraisal to significantly reduce the persistent back-and-forth that elongates the mortgage process. This Uniform Standard Title Transaction is an effort Minton is working to design with input from forward-thinking lenders who are enthused about the potential to cut downturn times.
Second, is greater acceptance of electronic signature and notarizations. A self-proclaimed advocate of digitization, Minton is steadfast in his belief that the mortgage process needs to take serious steps toward digitizing its signatory processes. Minton is a vocal supporter of Remote Online Notorization and has been working relentlessly with a team on development of a hybrid e-sign, called Simply Sign, which he calls a major step for the industry.
Rob Chrane, Down Payment Resource
Only recently has the mortgage industry coalesced around down payment assistance as a vital tool for bolstering homeownership and closing the racial homeownership gap. In 2008, Rob Chrane founded Down Payment Resource to help the housing industry connect homebuyers with homebuyer assistance programs. Today, not only is it one of few mortgage technologies that helps make homeownership more accessible to low- and middle-income borrowers, but also it is the only technology that directly equips lenders to help borrowers overcome the largest hurdle to homeownership: down payment and closing costs.
Through DPR, Chrane does the yeoman’s work of keeping tabs on every homebuyer assistance program in the country while developing innovative tools that enable mortgage lenders to curate, onboard, market, underwrite and manage homebuyer assistance programs. Understanding that lenders share the responsibility of educating homebuyers about assistance programs with other housing professionals, Chrane has developed tools that help real estate agents, MLSs and consumer listing sites raise awareness about and drive consumer interest in these vital programs.
Randolph, Minton and Chrane were honored here Monday at the MBA Technology Solutions Conference and Expo.
