FOR 18 YEARS, Reza Jahangiri has been the public face of American Advisors Group (AAG), the nation’s largest originator of reverse mortgages. While Jahangiri is still CEO and very much involved at AAG, the day-to-day operations of the company have passed to Ed Robinson, who became president and chief operating officer in August 2021. Robinson’s resume includes more than 30 years of combined professional and military leadership experience. He served 17 years in the U.S. Army, mostly in special operations. He worked as a sniper, jumped out of planes, and performed reconnaissance and surveillance work. Robinson applies many of the same principles he learned in the military to business. Robinson kept a low profile during his first couple of months at AAG, but he has taken a more active role in NRMLA. In late March, he was unanimously appointed to the Board of Directors for the balance of 2022 following the retirement of AAG Chief Legal Officer Jules Vogel. He also serves on the Executive Committee. Reverse Mortgage sat down with Robinson to learn more about his professional career, his first dealings with reverse mortgages over a decade ago and his priorities at AAG. Reverse Mortgage: Ed, help our readers get to know you a little bit better. Where did you grow up? What did your parents do for a living? How have they influenced your life and professional career? Ed Robinson: I come from a family of soldiers, so I lived all over the world, but I call Virginia and North Carolina my home. Dad was an engineer and mom was in law enforcement. They taught me to always strive to give my very best with everything, to give back to the community, to mentor folks so that they could achieve their dreams and, most importantly, to be a genuine leader who people can trust and respect. It starts with communicating with respect on a personal level and being transparent. My dad understood that everyone was different and that people had different ways of communicating. He could quickly ascertain their perspectives and speaking styles, regardless of who they were. As a result, he would speak with folks in their own preferred style of communication, and he taught me that you always need to know your audience. You don’t pander to them, you don’t cater to them, but you must understand them and communicate in a manner that they can understand and appreciate. Between my folks and the military, I’ve learned throughout my life that leadership is probably the single most important aspect of my job. RM: What attracted you to the reverse mortgage business? Did you have any prior knowledge of reverse mortgages prior to joining AAG? ER: Simply put, I love to serve. We’re in an interesting industry where we have the opportunity, literally every day, to make a direct and positive impact on the lives of American seniors. These are folks who bought into the American dream. When I was at GE Financial and later at Genworth, we looked at reverse because we had a real focus on seniors and creating an ecosystem of financial services solutions and products for them. Given our business model and products, the initial thought of entering the reverse mortgage industry was focused on offering mortgage insurance. We realized that we would effectively become a direct competitor to the FHA (Federal Housing Administration), so we performed an analysis of the total value chain and realized it was more advantageous to be a lender and/or a Ed Robinson, President and Chief Operating Officer, American Advisors Group By Darryl Hicks From the Top Ed Robinson 12 REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2022
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