People in the News May 12, 2023: Go Mortgage Names Jessica Manna Chief Marketing Officer

Go Mortgage Names Jessica Manna Chief Marketing Officer

Go Mortgage, Columbus, Ohio, named Jessica Manna as its chief marketing officer, responsible for overseeing all marketing initiatives and strategies to further promote Go Mortgage’s brand and drive business growth.

Manna has more than 20 years of experience in mortgage marketing and branding. Most recently, she served as president of digital strategy and innovation for Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp.

Georgeo Pulikkathara joins Dovenmuehle as Chief Information Security Officer

Dovenmuehle Mortgage Inc., Lake Zurich, Ill., hired Georgeo Pulikkathara as the company’s Chief Information Security Officer, responsible for the information security at Dovenmuehle, protecting data security and privacy, including borrowers’ nonpublic personal information and ensuring that Dovenmuehle maintains the appropriate internal systems, organization and information security controls necessary for financial reporting and protecting clients’ confidential data.

Pulikkathara has more than a decade of experience as a cyber and information security executive. Prior to joining Dovenmuehle, he most recently served as interim SVP and head of cyber security operations for Bank of the West and the CISO of DataStax, an artificial intelligence firm. He has also held cyber and information security positions with Avanade, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft. He is also currently a U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel and Cyber Operations Officer, having served in the Army Reserve for more than 23 years and been awarded the Bronze Star Medal twice for his actions in a combat zone.

Len Franco Joins Kriss Law/Atlantic Closing & Escrow as President of Commercial Services Division

Kriss Law/Atlantic Closing & Escrow, Needham, Mass., named Len Franco as President of its Commercial Services Division. He will be charged with overseeing continued growth of the company’s commercial footprint nationwide.

Franco comes to KL/ACE with more than 30 years of experience leading title insurance and real estate information businesses for some of the largest organizations in the industry. Most recently he served as President of Ascendant National Title’s National Commercial Services Division. Previously, he served as Executive Vice President for WFG Commercial Services Division, where he was responsible for overseeing the company’s expansion in the Northeast region. Before that, he served in multiple leadership roles with Fidelity National Financial, Stewart and First American’s National Lenders Advantage Division.

Donna Cichani, Gaurav Jain Join VALID Systems

VALID Systems, Fort Worth, Texas, named Donna Cichani Senior Vice President of Product Management and Gaurav Jain Senior Vice President of Credit and Product Innovation.

Cichani (photo not available) will be responsible for overseeing the enhancement of VALID’s platforms. She began her career at KPMG before spending three years at JPMorgan Chase & Co. as vice president and lead product manager.

Jain will oversee the alignment of VALID’s account-level decisioning and machine-learning capabilities around new-use cases and will identify new solutions, including how to best use bank account data for credit-risk decisioning. He began his career as a risk analyst intern for Deutsche Bank. Prior to joining VALID, he spent 11 years with Capital One, most recently as head of product marketing and analytics and senior product manager.

Down Payment Resource Adds Four

Down Payment Resource, Atlanta, brought on four new team members to grow its sales footprint, expand its relationships with housing finance agencies and provide enhanced support to DPR’s customer base.

Newly appointed team members are:

–Tani Lawrence, Enterprise Sales Executive, responsible for driving business growth. Previously, she served as senior business development executive at a document fulfillment fintech, where she signed the company’s largest lender client, and in a business development role at Optimal Blue, where she specialized in its Comergence risk management toolset.

–Angel Romero, HFA relationship manager. Romero has more than a decade of mortgage industry experience to build and maintain DPR’s relationships with hundreds of HFAs nationwide. Before joining DPR in March 2023, she served as AVP, post-closing manager and resident housing program expert with Cherry Creek Mortgage, where she helped drive the company’s expansion into underserved markets and streamline down payment assistance operations.

–Keith Futrell and Kathy Gault, DPA Program Specialists. Futrell has nearly two decades of housing finance industry experience as a mortgage account manager, processor and underwriter, and he has specialized knowledge underwriting DPA programs. Prior to joining DPR, Gault was senior strategic products and affordable housing programs coordinator with Mountain West Financial Inc.

Veros Names Heather Zeller Vice President of Marketing

Veros Real Estate Solutions, Santa Ana, Calif., hired Heather Zeller as its Vice President of Marketing. She will lead the marketing and communications teams to position Veros and sister company Valligent on property valuations, risk management solutions and housing industry data and forecasts.

Zeller has more than 25 years of experience in marketing management, product marketing and corporate strategy in the financial services, real estate, and fintech industries. Before joining Veros, she was Product Marketing Director with Clear Capital, a real estate valuation and technology provider.

Cenlar Appoints Michael Biddle Chief Data Scientist

Cenlar FSB, Ewing, N.J., named Michael Biddle Chief Data Scientist. He will lead Cenlar’s just-launched Mortgage Information Factory, an effort that will focus on leveraging the company’s data and turning that into actionable information and insight for Cenlar’s operations as well as clients and homeowners.

Biddle brings to Cenlar more than two decades of experience in building and sustaining quantitative analysis and research. He served previously with AiCurio, Claren Financial Services, American Mortgage Consultants Inc. Morningstar and Hudson Advisors.