MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND OPERATIONS TRACK: Tips to Prepare and Adapt to New Credit Scoring Models

Director, FICO

Michael Singer serves as Director of Marketing for FICO, where he is focused on outreach to mortgage and secondary market clients. A seasoned marketing communications professional, his career has included marketing leadership positions with Fannie Mae, where he served as senior brand manager, the Urban Land Institute, where he was vice president of marketing and public relations, and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, where he was associate director of marketing. He began his career in financial services marketing at GEICO. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago.

President, Xactus

Shelley Leonard serves as President of Xactus, and a member of the Board of Directors. With over two decades of experience developing and delivering technology solutions to the country’s top mortgage lenders and servicers, Shelley is steering the company to drive the transformation of the mortgage verifications industry with its innovative credit and data solutions and digital technologies. Prior to joining Xactus, Shelley served as an executive at Black Knight and its predecessor businesses, where she managed multiple, complex initiatives. Most recently, she was the Chief Product and Digital Officer and she led the Servicing Technologies business including the MSP loan servicing solution. She also held multiple other senior-level positions where she managed large portfolios of end-to-end mortgage, home equity and consumer lending product offerings, envisioned and executed against strategic growth initiatives while working closely with customers and business partners throughout our industry. By successfully leading in these roles, Shelley has gained a unique perspective and significant experience in product development, sales, operations and technology. She has consistently driven exceptional growth and performance, increased market share, launched new products, expanded into adjacent markets, embarked on new partnerships and M and A activity. Shelley has received numerous mortgage industry recognition honors including Progress in Lending’s Most Powerful Women in Fintech; MReport’s Top 25 Leaders and Influencers; HousingWire’s Vanguard Award; and more. She holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Tulsa and an M.B.A. from Jacksonville University.

Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Economist, VantageScore Solutions, LLC

Dr. Rikard Bandebo has spent the last 20 years as a product leader and general manager, working at the cross-section of financial services and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Throughout his career, he has paired his expertise in data analytics with meaningful insights that help drive product innovation and expand market share. Most recently, he served as VantageScore’s Chief Product Officer leading the data science and technology teams. In this role, he spearheaded the development of VantageScore 4plus and VantageScore 5 credit score models. Prior to VantageScore, he was the Chief Product Officer at Unacast, a location data company, where he helped steer a more product-driven strategy during a period of exciting growth. At Clarivate (a former Thomson Reuters division), he led product and strategy for MarkMonitor and led the divestiture and transition to Investcorp. Bandebo has also led product functions at other data analytics companies, including Bersin by Deloitte; 7Park Data (a Vista Equity Partners company); and real estate analytics company Markerr. Earlier in his career, Bandebo led the Analytics and Advisory teams at First Data (now a Fiserv company) where he shared insights on consumer spending, financial services, retail and small business sectors as Chief Economist. Bandebo earned his Doctorate, Master of Science as well as his Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com), Business, Economics and Computer Science degrees from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Vice President of Governance and Oversight, Rocket Mortgage, LLC

Eric Czajka is the Vice President of Governance and Oversight at Rocket Mortgage, where he leads a team responsible for managing vendors, contracts, and budgets. During his tenure, Eric has been instrumental in shaping many of Rocket’s policies, procedures, and strategies, contributing to the company's continued success. With a focus on strategic governance and financial oversight, Eric brings a wealth of experience in ensuring operational efficiency and compliance. In addition to his work at Rocket Mortgage, Eric is the Principal Attorney at Czajka Law, PLLC, specializing in business organization, contracts, estate planning and risk mitigation. His varied experience in both law and business management positions him as a distinguished voice in the topics of business operations, financial oversight, and legal matters.

Executive Vice President and Head of Mortgage, Fifth Third Bank

James “Jay” Plum is Executive Vice President and manages Real Estate Lending (Mortgage and Home Equity); Indirect Auto and Specialty Lending (RV and Marine businesses); and Dividend (Solar and Home Improvement Financing). He oversees the Origination and Servicing activities of those secured products. Before joining Fifth Third in April 2021, Jay served for 12 years in roles of increasing responsibility at Huntington Bancshares, most recently as executive vice president of consumer finance. In that position, he was responsible for the origination functions of mortgage, home equity, personal loans, and for card products. Under his leadership, mortgage lending grew to be the top mortgage lender in Ohio and home equity grew to be a top ten lender in the US. Jay joined Huntington in 2009 as director of consumer lending after serving five years at Citizens Bank, where he rose to president of home lending, including mortgage and consumer lending. Jay began his career at Bank One in Cincinnati. He also worked for Provident Bank in Cincinnati, where he was manager of consumer lending, mortgage and card services. The native New Yorker now resides in Cincinnati.

Vice President - Mortgage and Capital Markets, FICO

Joe Zeibert has worked in the financial services and software industries for 15+ years, gaining experience at Bank of America and Ally Financial after starting his career at a boutique consulting and software firm. He is now a Vice President of Scores at FICO. Prior to joining FICO, Joe was the GM/VP of a division of a FinTech helping grow the customer base by over 100%. Before making the jump out of the banking side he was recruited to Ally Financial to help launch their brand-new Mortgage line of business and helped build it from the ground up. After the successful launch, Joe became the Senior Director of Product, Pricing, Credit & Analytics, where he managed four departments with over 40 employees.