Amy Brandt has joined Docutech as its president and chief operating officer, bringing 20 years of experience running a mortgage banker.
"I lived with the realities of what it is like to run an end-to-end mortgage process in all the different channels," she said.
So she has seen her share of mortgage vendors "when they don't provide what you need or don't have a complete solution and how challenging that can be" for the lender."
"As the one facing the customer in the origination seat, the clients ultimately hold you responsible [if something goes wrong]. So the capabilities and the reliability of your partners on the vendor side is so, so critical," Brandt said.
Docutech's previous COO was Larry "Chip" Brown, who left the company last year.
In her new position, Brandt reports to the founder and CEO of the Idaho Falls, Idaho-based company, Ty Jenkins, and is responsible for leading all aspects of daily operations, including sales, customer support, marketing and product development.
Brandt was a top executive at three independent mortgage bankers. In February 2016,
Prior to that, she was Prospect Mortgage's president of the correspondent lending and servicing businesses. She started there in November 2012; in July 2013, she was promoted to COO.
For nine years, ending in 2006, she was president (and from May 2004, CEO) of WMC Mortgage, which was the subprime lending business of GE Capital.
After leaving WMC, she founded the private equity fund Vantium Capital with the assistance of Apollo Global Management. Among other things, Vantium offered default vendor services to mortgage servicers and note holders.
Among the things Brandt will focus on is building out Docutech's infrastructure to accommodate the needs of its growing customer base.
Then there is developing Docutech's technology around the e-closing. There are "certain things from a broader market perspective impeding the completion of a total e-closing."
Some of those barriers are outside of what the document providers do, such as how to have a remote notary authenticate the transaction, Brandt said.
Even if mortgage lenders aren't ready for e-closings now, they will get there eventually "and we want to be early on that," she said.
Most lenders are looking long and hard at technology and how it could help improve their efficiencies, their customer experience and provide consistency in the implementation of regulatory requirements.
"For the most part, the willingness in the origination industry is there to provide [these services]; the tools are coming together more slowly," Brandt said.
Last July, Serent Capital became
"As much as I do, [Serent] also wants to be innovative, to grow, to look for ways to expand [Docutech's] offerings," she said.
