GENERAL SESSION: Market Outlook

President & Chief Executive Officer, Mortgage Bankers Association

Robert (Bob) Broeksmit is President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Bob is a senior finance executive and corporate officer with a 35-year career in the mortgage sector. He has directed all aspects of lending activities, including marketing, sales, operations, secondary marketing, loan servicing, and default management. He has also served as a mortgage underwriting expert testifying on many large, high-profile cases. Prior to joining MBA in 2018, Bob served as President and Chief Operating Officer with Treliant, heading the firm’s mortgage litigation support practice and serving diverse financial services clientele including large banks, independent mortgage lenders, community banks, credit unions, and service providers to the mortgage industry. As a Washington-based financial services consultancy, Treliant’s mortgage practice included strategic advisory for executive management and corporate boards; litigation defense, including file reviews, litigation strategy, expert reports, and expert testimony; CFPB examination preparation and implementation of mortgage regulations promulgated by the CFPB and other regulators; and operational aspects of mortgage banking, ranging from origination to servicing and loss mitigation. Before Treliant, Bob held senior leadership positions in the mortgage business, including fourteen years with Chevy Chase Bank (including after its purchase by Capital One), where he was Executive Vice President and President of its B.F. Saul Mortgage Company subsidiary. Bob also was a Vice President at Prudential Home Mortgage for seven years. He has overseen annual originations of $9 billion, a balance sheet of $10 billion in residential mortgages, and a servicing portfolio of $20 billion. He also held positions at Great Western Mortgage, Krupp Residential Mortgage, and The Money Store. Bob has served as the Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Residential Board of Governors and as a member of its Board of Directors. Firms under his leadership have garnered multiple awards for servicing operations excellence, including Freddie Mac’s Tier One and Hall of Fame designations. He is a Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) and a graduate of Yale University.

AVP, Client Account Management, Safeguard Properties

Elizabeth Squires, AVP, Client Account Management, joined Safeguard in 2011 as an REO specialist and has continued to take on additional duties and responsibilities within the organization, including client account representative, business analyst, supervisor, and manager, all within the Client Account Team. She has also successfully partnered with clients to coordinate multiple IT Integration projects that help improve efficiency and optimize processes. Squires was a member of the inaugural Emerging Leader Program at Safeguard in 2017. Prior to Safeguard, Squires was the owner/director of an art gallery in Cleveland specializing in local emerging artists. She is a graduate of Duke University where she majored in Art History.

Vice President, Deputy Chief Economist, Mortgage Bankers Association

Joel Kan serves as Vice President, Deputy Chief Economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. In this role, he is responsible for MBA's macroeconomic and housing market forecasts and oversees the production of MBA's industry surveys, including the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, Builder Applications Survey, and Mortgage Credit Availability Index - three of the association's high-profile surveys. Mr. Kan presents regularly on the economy and housing market at MBA and industry events, and is interviewed and quoted frequently in national, local and industry media outlets. Prior to joining the MBA, he worked in Ernst & Young's Quantitative Economics and Statistics (QUEST) group. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics and Statistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Vice President, Industry Analysis, Mortgage Bankers Association

Marina Walsh, CMB, is Vice President of Industry Analysis in MBA's Research and Economics Department, specializing in industry performance benchmarking for residential lenders and servicers. She leads the management and direction for the Mortgage Bankers Performance Reports, the Peer Group Survey and Roundtable Program, the Servicing Operations Study, the Warehouse Lender Study, and other studies that measure lender performance. She is MBA's spokesperson for all servicing-related studies including the National Delinquency Survey and the Loan Monitoring Survey. Prior to joining MBA, Walsh was a manager in Ernst and Young's Real Estate Advisory Services Group. She has previously been named to HousingWire's "Women of Influence" list. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University.