Melanie Powers explores her journey from her Greek family upbringing in Texas to becoming a key player in the mortgage industry. Discover how mentorship, customer engagement, and a passion for innovation shaped her career at Polly. Melanie reflects on her challenges, successes, and the transformative role of technology in redefining capital markets.
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00:00I really find that our customers are not just a customer, you know, they are our partner.
00:07We want to work together to a better, more automated mortgage world.
00:20I was born in Austin, Texas, and grew up in Dallas, Texas, went to college in Texas,
00:27and have had all of my mortgage career in Texas. I have a massively huge family. I'm Greek,
00:35and my entire family lives in the same neighborhood, so we are all very, very close.
00:41I definitely am open to new learning experiences. I'm definitely open to learning from others.
00:48I feel like that really shaped me well for my entire career. Every place that I've worked,
00:55they would say, oh, who does that? And everybody would always say, well, just ask Melanie,
01:00and she'll do it. I was always looking for guidance and input in order to make my own
01:08decision. I do try to hear all of the different viewpoints of that, so I think that's really
01:14important in my role now. Having mortgage experience, but working in product and technology,
01:21it's very important that I don't rely on just my knowledge and that I am taking that feedback
01:28and constantly incorporating that. I had a very strange start, but I feel like that's kind of
01:40tradition in the mortgage industry. I was very interested in real estate. I wanted to become
01:45a realtor until I met some mortgage people who just thought that I fit their culture and their
01:54needs at that time, and I ended up going over and working in the mortgage industry.
02:00As far as getting into secondary and lock desk, capital markets, that world, that was a little bit
02:06of a funny story. I basically was the AVP of shipping and post-closing. The leadership came
02:13to me and told me that I should join the secondary department, and I didn't want to.
02:20I actually kind of said no at first until they really said, basically, your job is being
02:28eliminated and you really need to move. I said, oh, I'm going to secondary, and I loved it.
02:34I absolutely loved it. I love economics. That's definitely a huge passion of mine.
02:44My team is called the Innovation Capital Markets Lock Desk Team. We really focus in on the lock
02:52desk and the capital markets user, definitely enhancing their experience, making that better
02:59so that they can have better customer service for the loan officers. It's very important to have
03:06a lock desk capital markets team that is loan officer-centric. That's our big focus.
03:12I meet with customers on a regular basis, taking the customer feedback, getting it into design,
03:19taking it back to the customer to make sure that I am aligned with them and going in the direction
03:25that they like, and finalizing those requirements and then communicating that to the engineer team,
03:32making sure that the end result is the customer is happy.
03:35I've just never been so engaged and so happy. I love to teach and I love to learn. Probably those
03:45two things are the most rewarding to me. I love learning the different ways that capital markets
03:52or lock desk customers do things or think the way they think about things. I love the people
04:00of this company. They are really special and really care a lot. Like every day, we just,
04:07you know, put on a smile. It's all about the people and our customers.
04:16I came to Poly with a mission. There is something that we have been lacking in the mortgage industry.
04:24It's the renegotiation tool. If you ask anyone that has sat on a lock desk, their biggest pain
04:30point, the hardest task that they ever had to do, they easily and quickly will answer you that it's
04:38renegotiating rates. Poly is going to be the first pricing engine to launch renegotiation for the
04:48lock desks to perform these tasks very easily based off of their policy to know if the rate can
04:54be renegotiated in order to allow the loan officers to quickly get back to the borrowers.
05:00Couldn't be anything better in the entire world than this. It's just a game changer and we're
05:07very excited about it. What am I most excited about? Well, I'm excited about the fact that
05:17what am I most excited about Poly's future is there are so many amazing ideas that are
05:23floating around this company. The renegotiation is by far my baby. I am in love with it. It has
05:31been, it was born in my brain before I came to Poly, but it has morphed because I have been
05:40talking with customers and getting their feedback on it and talking about, ooh, it would be cool if
05:46it did this. All of our customers are so invested in it and so excited about it. That specifically
05:53is what I'm excited about. As for the future of Poly altogether, I am so excited to bring
06:01something like Poly to the mortgage industry, not just in regards of giving them a good tech,
06:09but also in giving them a partnership in someone that really cares and wants to hear about them.
06:16I really love to be a part of that with Poly,
06:19and I really see our customers just opening up and loving it as well.