Jason Bressler | FinTech Magazine
It says a lot about United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) and its work culture that Chief Technology Officer Jason Bressler smiles from ear to ear when he talks to us about his role. “I actually have a seat at the business table and help drive the strategy of UWM,” Bressler enthuses. “It’s great. My leadership is so invested in our technology and our technology team that it’s definitely been the most rewarding thing in my career.”
For over 30 years, United Wholesale Mortgage has connected mortgage brokers and home buyers with the right credit to meet their requirements. The company focuses exclusively on the B2B channel, which Bressler is passionate about. “We want to show consumers that brokers are better, and the choice is better,” he says. And it’s an approach that’s definitely paying off: UWM is the largest wholesale lender in the United States, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, and when Bressler speaks to us from his office in Michigan, the firm has just become the largest mortgage company in the world.
In January 2021, UWM made its debut on Wall Street when it went public in an IPO. For Bressler, a financial officer who has been with the company since 2016, it was an extremely affirming moment. “It’s incredibly rewarding,” he says. “It’s allowed us to really invest in our technology team and really start building out products, not just for the mortgage space, but the whole fintech space, which can be used for consumers, for brokers, and so obviously for us as well.”
An experienced technical manager with a personal touch
Bressler has more than 25 years of experience in the financial industry. Before joining UWM, he was CIO at loan startup platform Ellie Mae and CTO at The Federal Savings Bank in Chicago. But he’s a Michigander at heart, growing up here before attending Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, near Detroit.
Like many others in business, he is inspired by the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. And while mortgage lending may seem a far cry from the glitz and glamor of Silicon Valley, Bressler argues there are still parallels. Homebuyers know what they want when looking for property, but rarely do they know what they want from a mortgage. It’s up to UWM and its network of brokers to help them realize, much in the same way that Apple pioneered products that consumers never knew they needed 15 years ago.
Bressler strongly subscribes to a build-over-buy approach. UWM builds everything in-house, and distributes as often as seven or eight times a day. He leads a team of around 1,300 employees and takes it upon himself to know each one by name. He reveals, “I actually study flashcards at night with pictures and facts about them, so when I pass them in the hallway, they know I know who they are.”
Given this personal approach, it’s no surprise that UWM invests significant resources in its employees—its “greatest asset,” as the business refers to them. One thing the firm does differently is invest in entry-level employees, who might make $15 an hour, and equip them with the skills they need to embark on an entirely new career course. They may only have a high school diploma, but UWM trains them from the ground up to become developers, business analysts and DevOps professionals. “I tell everyone that if we were a hospital, we’d be a teaching hospital,” Bressler jokes.
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