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Notable mortgage industry additions and promotions, Jan. 1-5

Altisource Asset Management Corp. announced that William C. Erbey was named as the company’s new CEO. In addition, Altisource’s board of directors appointed Erbey as its chairman. Erbey is best known as the founder of Ocwen Financial Corp., and from 1983 to 1995, he served as a managing general partner of The Oxford Financial Group, a private investment partnership that was the predecessor of Ocwen. He previously served as chief executive of Salt Pond Holdings LLC and as the manager of System73 Global LLC. He is also the founder of Home Loan Servicing Solutions Ltd. and served as its chairman from 2010 to 2013. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Allegheny College and an MBA from Harvard University.

Planet Home Lending appointed Melony Harpe as vice president and construction sales manager. With more than 20 years of construction lending experience, Harpe is tasked with empowering Planet’s mortgage loan officers and branches to increase their new home construction loan volume in 2024.

WFG National Title Insurance Co. (WFG) promoted Natalie Koonce to division president for the company’s Colorado region. Koonce joined WFG in April 2020 as senior vice president and national escrow adviser, and she brings more than 25 years of industry experience in title, escrow and real estate services. In her new role, Koonce will leverage her extensive industry expertise and well-established industry relationships to support and grow WFG’s Colorado operations. She previously served as president of North American Title of Colorado.

Rocket Companies announced the hiring of Jonathan Mildenhall as its first-ever group chief marketing officer, effective Jan. 8. In this new role, Mildenhall will be responsible for creating a unified and compelling voice for all businesses under the Rocket Companies umbrella, with all marketing and communications teams for the company’s brands reporting directly to him. Mildenhall brings more than 30 years of experience, including co-founding his own branding consultancy, TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, in 2018. Prior to founding his own firm, Mildenhall served as the first CMO of Airbnb and led Coca-Cola’s marketing as vice president of global advertising strategy and content excellence.

Cenlar FSB announced that Kelly O’Donnell and Karen Sim have joined the company as directors of enterprise portfolio management, while Darrin Borell was promoted to director of enterprise portfolio management. Prior to joining Cenlar, O’Donnell served as director of program management for Sirva. She holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix. Before joining Cenlar, Sim was senior project manager at QBE Insurance Group Ltd. Prior to QBE, she worked at Webster Financial Corp. as a project manager. Sim holds a bachelor’s degree from Quinnipiac University with an emphasis in legal studies and management. Borell joined Cenlar in 2021 as manager of enterprise portfolio management. He served as senior project manager for NYK Business Systems Americas Inc. before joining Cenlar. He was also an independent consultant for Merrill Lynch in a project management capacity and held roles at Fiserv and Accenture.

Cushman & Wakefield announced that Chris Hipps has joined the firm as Texas managing principal. Hipps, who will be based in Dallas, will lead Cushman & Wakefield’s advisory professionals across Texas. Hipps joins Cushman & Wakefield from CBRE, where he was senior managing director of advisory and transaction services in the Dallas/Fort Worth region. He began his career and spent nearly 25 years with Cadillac Fairview and its successors, Prentiss Properties Trust and Brandywine Realty Trust. The firm also promoted Jeremy Edmiston to executive director and U.S. lead for built-to-rent (BTR) and single-family rental (SFR) properties. In this new role, he will collaborate with the firm’s capital markets and debt teams to provide unified, end-to-end BTR/SFR solutions for Cushman & Wakefield’s clients.

Scotsman Guide announced the hiring of Tom MacArthur as an account executive. MacArthur started in the mortgage business part time during college as a property inspector and notary public, before formally joining the industry in 1991 as a loan processor with CEI Financial. Since then, he has served in various lending and finance positions at numerous companies, including Motto Mortgage Group, Movement Mortgage, Impac Mortgage, WaFd Bank and Chase Bank. He is also a past president and education committee chair for the Washington Association of Mortgage Professionals. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations and mass communications from Central Washington University.

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