Nov/Dec 2021 RMM

That type of goodwill is necessary for the future growth of our industry. RM: What makes someone an effective business leader? KS: An effective business leader focuses on his or her customers, partners and employees. An effective business leader focuses on innovation. If we can remain focused on both innovation—looking five, ten, 15 years down the line and asking ourselves, “how are we going to build for an unknown future?”—while also creating a culture of compassion for our people so that they want to come here and help contribute to that cause gives us a better ability to be resilient and to pivot when we need to and weather any storm that we may face. There’s a quote I love from Jeff Bezos, “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.” I truly believe that. We come to work treating each day as Day 1. We don’t look at our successes and rest on our laurels. We think about how we can build a future where tech companies could be our competitors, rather than just other mortgage companies. A good leader understands the needs of the workforce and builds an environment that nurtures people, so that they feel like they have opportunities to grow, contribute and be innovative. When I came into this role, I didn’t have all the answers. It was liberating to be open-minded to things I didn’t know, challenging the status quo, asking really good questions and finding ways to think differently in an industry that has done things a certain way for a really long time. RM: By the time this interview is published, NRMLA will be celebrating its 25th anniversary. Where do you see the reverse mortgage industry 25 years from now? KS: OK, 25 years in the future is fun to think about. I believe the use of home equity to support financial sta- bility and retirement will be a mainstream concept. I actually think we should get there much sooner, but to do so it’s critical that our industry finds novel ways to edu- cate the market at a much broader scale. Our industry is really challenged right now just juggling the current refi wave and trying to find ways to market to new customers. Collectively, we need to be thinking about new and fresh ways to invest in marketing, so that we can continue to change the conversation and pave the way for this prod- uct to be mainstream. There still are a lot of people out there who have misconceptions about what it means to tap home equity during retirement. That, coupled with continued investments in product development, can help us break down barriers between the forward mortgage industry and the reverse mortgage industry that can help our cause. From the Top REAL-TIME STATUS UPDATES REVERSE QUALIFIED SIGNING AGENTS ATTORNEY-SIGNING EQUIPPED getnotaroo.com | (480)477-9627 | info@notaroo.com REVERSE MORTGAGE SIGNING EXPERTS REVERSE MORTGAGE / NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 15