GENERAL SESSION: The Promise and Possibility of AI

2025 MBA Chair; President, Lennar Mortgage

Laura Escobar is the 2025 MBA Chair and President of Lennar Mortgage. A 30-year mortgage industry veteran, Escobar has held leadership positions with both bank-owned and independent mortgage companies overseeing all aspects of mortgage banking, including production, operations, compliance, accounting, and training. Her personal ground level experience in every facet of mortgage lending has enabled her to manage and fully integrate all of these departments within Lennar Mortgage. Escobar is highly engaged in the industry, serves on MBA’s Board of Directors, and was co-chair of MBA’s IMB Executive Council from 2020–2022. She is also a director of the MBA Opens Doors Foundation, which she has supported by successfully fundraising for the foundation’s work and leading Lennar in company campaigns. Beyond her industry work, she is also a licensed mental health counselor and devotes much of her time to working with underprivileged women.

Director, Worldwide Public Sector Financial Services, Amazon Web Services

Olivia is a distinguished leader in technology with 25 years of experience driving innovation in the financial services sector. Currently, as the Director of Amazon Web Services Worldwide Public Sector Financial Services organization, Olivia spearheads initiatives that empower global financial regulators, monetary agencies, and housing and mortgage customers to achieve mission-critical outcomes. She leads a cross-functional organization of specialists dedicated to helping customers build secure and scalable AWS foundations, harness the power of their data, and mitigate risk through automation. Olivia partners with Global System Integrators, small businesses, and ISVs to inform cloud strategy and enable implementation. Olivia is a recognized thought leader on cloud strategy and emerging trends in Federal financial services. She has shared her insights at prominent events such as DC Fintech Week, GovExec, FedScoop, Mortgage Bankers Association, MISMO, SIBOS and AWS re:Invent and DC Summit. Before joining AWS, Olivia was the Senior Vice President of Client Services and Solutions at SS&C Primatics Financial, where she led the implementation, advisory, support, and outsourcing services for the EVOLV loan platform. She guided top-tier Banks, including Fannie Mae, JPMC, US Bank, PNC, Zions, M&T, KeyBank, Capital One, BMO Harris, and Silicon Valley through merger and acquisitions, stress testing, and distressed loan portfolio management. Prior to her tenure at SS&C Primatics, Olivia was a Principal Advisor at Fannie Mae and Senior Director of Business Initiatives at Freddie Mac, playing a pivotal part in both financial restatements. Olivia began her career in in financial services at KPMG, supporting clients such as HUD, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, and OPIC in the development of financial systems and support for mortgage backed security portfolios. Olivia graduated with honors from James Madison University with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration, majoring in Financial Engineering.

Director, Global Systems Integrator Partnerships, NVIDIA Corporation

David has spent most of his career at the intersection of new technology adoption and business value. He has designed and deployed some of the largest financial services and telecom contact centers in the world. He has successfully launched cybersecurity offerings with the biggest names in infrastructure security. David’s current role at NVIDIA is focused on developing solutions with partners that unlock business value for their clients through accelerated computing. David holds a bachelor’s in finance and an MBA in international business.