Bringing out the Best, with Jillian Mantua

In this episode, we welcome VP of of IT Training, Growth & Development at United Wholesale Mortgage, Jillian Mantua.

Jillian is passionate about developing and guiding teams through the uncharted territories that come with organizational transitions and rapid growth by leveraging best practices across all industries. She focuses on identifying what and how to do things differently than current day practices, how to bring out the best in employees, and true alignment with organizational values.

Tune into hear Dori and Jillian discuss a variety of topics around the importance of fostering and developing growth within an organization to achieve operational efficiencies, and the recipe that United Wholesale Mortgage has developed to do just that.

Follow Jillian on LinkedIn here and don't forget to rate, subscribe, and share this podcast with friends and colleagues!

*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.

This is a production of ProcellaRX

Transcript

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 0:10

podcasting from Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from Washington DC, where we all hope doing what is right the first time is everyone's top priority. This is software quality today presented by Purcell RX, a podcast about the trends and challenges of software quality testing and computerized system validation. And the people who are leading the way. Here interviews with special guests and news from customers and vendors. I'm your host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo and welcome to today's episode. Welcome to self reporting today. I'm your host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo I'm excited to bring to you a new friend and colleague that I met this year, I think you will be equally as inspired by Gillian Mantua Vice President of Information Technology at United Wholesale mortgage. As Vice President of IT training, Julian is responsible for the growth development and retention of the technology. Team members, she partners closely with 120 Plus IT leaders spanning the enterprise, as well as the UW FM's talent and marketing teams and oversees programs and efforts that results in 50,000 Plus completed training hours every year. Julian has held this role since 2020. But it has been at United Wholesale mortgage since 2010, leading a variety of teams including sales, operations, application development, and product delivery. Julian is a passionate about developing and guiding teams through uncharted territories, company transition and rapid growth. Leveraging best practices from all industries is the way in the future. How and what can you do to do something different within your organization today? How can you bring about the best in your people and optimize your operational efficiencies? What does true alignment of values with an organization look like? Well, United Wholesale mortgage has a great recipe. I hope you enjoy our conversation today. Please let me know what you think. And there's others in your organization that you think would be great for this podcast? Reach out? Let us know. Take care. Well, welcome, Julian to software quality today. How are you?

Jillian Mantua: 2:17

I'm doing great. How are you? Very good. Well,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 2:19

it's been I was out in Detroit in November. So it's been a couple of months now. And I'm happy to have this opportunity to chat with you again, because your tour of United Wholesale mortgage was one of the most fascinating things I had happened to me last year, then you're you're walking me through everything describing your process. And all of what you guys do, was probably the most, you know, part of all of the values I saw each and every room that we went to was threaded throughout your entire operation. And so I was really impressed. And so I'm glad you're here, because I'd love for everyone else to learn about it.

Jillian Mantua: 3:06

Yeah, it's so nice to reconnect with you. It's so nice to have you. And it's always like, we love having people here and showing off the campus. I mean, I really believe everyone here is so proud of it. Because everyone, there's so many people here that I've helped build it, and seen us go from a you know, 200 person company to you know, 7000 and what it takes and the challenges and the struggles. But it is definitely something that I think we all take a lot of pride in as we're walking through the building and get to show it off for visitors. Everyone.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 3:34

I asked from an employee perspective, like, had stellar recommendations across the board. And so, you know, being in quality in life sciences, I thought it was a really good opportunity to share with folks that typically listen to this podcast, some opinions and thoughts around what a different verticals does, right. So you guys are in mortgages, something that I wouldn't have thought to pick a brain about. Because it's not something that I really enjoyed to talk about, like, whenever I have to get my mortgages, it's not something that I run very happily towards. So yes, but this is really fascinating. So you are the VP of IT training. Yeah. And I would love for you to share a little bit about your journey and how you came to be in that role because I think it's pretty unique.

Jillian Mantua: 4:26

Oh, well I won't I'll try to try to keep it brief because it's a it's definitely a long one I think to get where I am today but out of college I went to Michigan State and I went into sales I shockingly I wanted to get in pharmaceutical sales and ended up in the mortgage space and doing mortgage as a loan officer in sales there moved into leadership very quickly. mortgage business was booming. In oh five when I started, then the crash of oh seven happen, right the economic downturn, something like we've never seen before. So through a series of events Since I left the company that I started at and took some time off, and then got back into the game and got into another small company, a 25 person job, a year after I started there, that company closed their doors. So the owner of that company knew Jeff ish via who is the owner and founder of United Wholesale mortgage. And, you know, locally knowing each other, he said, I'd like to take all people that were at your company that you have to close down, and I'd like to interview them for positions with shore mortgage and United Wholesale mortgage, we're in a good spot, we're going to need people. And so I interviewed for a position that United Wholesale mortgage in 2010, still sales at the time, so mortgage sales call center style, over the phone, direct to consumer, so selling mortgages to consumers over the phone. And I did that for I think about three and a half, four years here, at what was your mortgage at the time. So that was our direct to retail branch. That is a very tough business. Our wholesale business, which is the we work with directly with broker, so not direct to consumer, but business, the business side, was the large part of the company that was very successful, retail was very small, not very profitable, and, you know, struggled, I think, to get that off the ground. So about three and a half, four years in the CEO, Matt Ishqiya, who's very well known now, with all of his success, he said, we're going to shut down retail, and you know, we're going to just solely focus on wholesale. So this was a bit of a pivotal time, I think, in my career, and kind of what cemented me here with a company, because there was 225 people we had working in retail at the time, and I was senior vice president overall of US sales and operations. And, you know, he said, I want to take every single person that is in retail, and I want to find them a position within United Wholesale mortgage. And that's something that most you know, they'll just do a layoff, right? There's like, yeah, people have to be skilled, retrained, there's a lot that goes into that that's not something that's it's a whole thing that you have to do, you know, and, you know, people complaining, and, you know, what if they don't have role, so, you know, we did that, and we did that very successfully. And at the time, you know, I was asked, you know, what I wanted to do, and I said, I, you know, that they just assumed kind of maybe do you want to go into sales, and I said not really, you know, I've been in sales now for you know, a handful of years, and I really don't want to be 50 and in sales is the ups and downs. Those swings are are tough to stomach, you know, the big years are amazing. But then you got to survive through years, like we're in now, you know, the poor sales guys that are out there. Now, it's, you know, I definitely feel for them. I was a big complainer of our technology. All throughout my sales tenure at short. I constantly told anyone that would listen, including the CEO, how horrible I thought our technology was, he always told me we have the best technology that's out there. And you know, what's funny is we actually did and I still looking at it was at the time. Yeah, it was, it was so bad. But it was the best of the worse, you know, at the time, and we weren't even on the map yet. As a lender, we're starting to get on the map. I think now. So, you know, they mentioned that I complained a lot about technology. And why don't why don't I go over to technology and see what I can do. So our technology team, when I started in 2010 was I think it was two people. And when I came in, you know, four years later, it's been eight years, I think I've been in tech now, there was about 40 or 45 people or so. So the tech team is still very small at this point. And the company is rapidly growing and expanding. So I came into the tech space, not knowing anything I didn't know, I sat in the room with a lot of the leaders and the few of the VPS. And I didn't know a single word that they were saying I didn't if and and the or the only way. And I had been in mortgages my whole career. Like I knew everything mortgages,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 8:43

I can tell you need the big guy, but you didn't have the technical side. Yeah,

Jillian Mantua: 8:47

at all. Yeah. So eventually, I started to realize that they didn't know the mortgage side at all. And there were things that they didn't know that I could start to understand where my value was within the team. So they would bring up I think at some point, someone brought up a question and said, What is DTI? And they're working on our systems that impacted our debt to income ratio, you know, eight years ago, and I said, you don't know what that is. I said, You can't mess that you can't mess that up. If you mess that up. It's going to impact our a US findings. And they're like, what's a US? Like? It's our automated underwriting system, you know. And so we start to go into at the in this meeting all the details of like, it is critical that you get this right. So you need to make sure that you test this and how are we going to test this? And do you understand how this works? And, you know, I started to lay it out for them at the time, and they're like, oh, wow, this is helpful, all this knowledge and all this knowledge that you have that you're kind of just spitting out in this meeting. So at that point, I started to get my legs under me a little bit in tech, and they kind of sent me loose to do whatever I wanted. So this is my first year in TAC, they said Go Go find some things you think we need to improve? And I was like, Well, I got lists. So let me let me show you what you know. So I went into a few of our teams and came And so here's some options of just massive efficiency pickups that we could make systems or slow system data points are all over on 30 different pages for one person that's just trying to do one loan, you know, it takes them 45 minutes, it seems ridiculous. They're only inputting like 35 data points. And so they gave me a development team. And they said, here's the development team, tell them what you want to do and put them to work. I said, Great, like, you know, so happened to be a guy that I had, I was able to hire one technology guy when I was on the retail side, because all my complaining, I was like, just let me hire someone, let me here. They eventually took him because he was so valuable. And he ended up being one of the guys on the team, when I had all these ideas that they said, go execute, it happened to be the guy that I had hired, you know, years earlier that had moved into wholesale law long prior. So we get it going, they start developing. And creating a web based solution from where we were getting us off of a vendor that we were working with was just old and archaic. And I'm probably six or seven months pregnant at the time when we're in the midst of all this. So, you know, first first opportunity and tag team starts building it in, we finally get it out the door. And I think the first I took the whole development team down to the users with me, because there was 12 users on this team. And, you know, five or six developers and a handful of testers that were there. So I said, Hey, the day we deploy just come down, they're like, in there. Everyone's like, we can do that. And like, we can do anything like, people want us to be successful. There's nobody telling us we can't do anything. I said, I'll get some folding tables, like, let's sit there and watch. Can you guys do that with you? They're like, yes. So you know, the first day we deployed my first ever deployment, we sit down there, and the developers are just watching the users as we go live. And they're seeing things instantly, they're like, Oh, I see that I see the error they're having I see the problem, I see the, I'm gonna fix it, and I'm gonna re push to production. So it was like rapid fire deploy, where you don't have to wait for that feedback cycle in that feedback loop. And the team was so energized and so excited about it, I was like, this is fun. You know, I could like if this is what tech is, like, I can do this. The team that we deployed to, they were stoked, I mean, the system was so much easier. It was so simple, there was limited training that was needed. Now, I think in the first day, I have to check my numbers. I don't want to get these numbers wrong. But you know, in a day a user could do 12 A day is what I recall, from that time. And the first day we deployed, it went up to 40. And also a user goes from 12 to 40. Right. And then I think when I a couple years ago, I shadowed the team and they were up to 120. You know, just because we were just chipping away at small integrations and things that we could do at the time, and the quality went through the roof, because less human error, more logical order of how they work a document and the data points that they need to input, you know, automating fields that are coming in. So it just created such a better experience, not just for our team members, less stress on the leaders to have to train people, less skilled people necessarily. And then our brokers had a better experience with their loans move faster, and there's less mistakes that are happening. So that was my first experience.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 13:04

What I loved about all of that is that it was intuitive to you and what I'm hearing what you're sharing, right, it was intuitive to you given your role as a Smee as it as a former user, right? And then given the opportunity, a latitude to try something new, right? And bring the teams together and do that in real time. And and let the experience happen across the aisle. Right? Where, you know, not necessarily, that doesn't necessarily happen all the time, right? Sometimes teams get the list of requirements or features that they would like to have, and not a lot of dialogue, right. And then they don't see the added value of what's really behind the scenes. So what I love about that stories is it's very intuitive in given that just, that's who you were, at the time and what you saw as being valuable to the company. So you brought it there.

Jillian Mantua: 14:02

Oh, yeah. And I kept afterwards they're like, oh, you're a great, you're, you're agile, and you're a great business analyst. I was like, what I don't even know what it's like, we're just, we're just improving technology for people. You know, and this is, this is great. And this is how we should do it. And, you know, I didn't, I was so I was so ignorant to like, what the norms were, that it didn't matter. I was just like, This is what makes brilliant about it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so I think over time is what we saw is that, you know, I had success, and I had a lot of experience, but we started have other people come in from the business side that they were adding value to, and they could pick up the tech stuff, or they could push a little bit to say, Come meet the people or let me introduce you to this group. So you can see how they work come shadow, you know, so we kind of started to break down a lot of those barriers where, you know, on the technology side, they started to feel more comfortable engaging and interacting with the business side where you didn't have to write a long requirements document and like you said, throw it over the wall. And it's like, No, you're a developer, but the people work right down here. Let's just go on They show you Yeah, you're gonna see when you do a shadow, it's like every everyone sees a different of like, you're gonna see how slow it is the user has been working in it for two years. They don't even really, you know, they know it's slow. But, you know, when you look at it, you're like, I would never work in this system. I can't even believe people are willing to do it. Yeah, you know, to an extent. So what's so yeah, that was my first taste.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 15:20

I love that. And the other thing, which I also struck me at the, when I came and toured with you was, how close in proximity everybody was relatively, I mean, it's a big campus, but it's accessible to everybody. And you were also sharing like, you guys were back full time, like in person as quick as possible, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. So can you share a little bit about that? Because I think that's also very unique. And what you do today, too, right? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. But

Jillian Mantua: 15:53

there are so art, our culture here, united, wholesale, mortgage, it drives everything that we do. So the, it's encouraged to get things done and getting things done doesn't mean you send an email and feel accomplished, you know, oh, you send an email. And here's the things I need from somebody, no, go walk to the third floor. Talk to the I just had a meet with immigration attorney, right, go talk to him, figure out what he needs from us and make sure you got a good plan moving forward. So I think the environment that we have here where it's highly always encouraged, just go get the answer that you need interruption, you know, a lot of companies, some people are like, Oh, that's so many interruptions. No, it's, it's, it's, it's speeding you up. Because you don't have to have so much back and forth. It's most people just need a quick answer. Or there's a quick question, or if there's a more formal meeting that needs to be set up, of course, those things happen here as well. But you don't get a lot accomplished through back and forth on email, and even phone I mean, phone is sometimes a little bit better, you know, but getting someone on the phone, and then understanding context and body language and things like that. So, you know, we solve a lot of problems by being able to be in person and break down a lot of barriers on the IT side, like how the teams are located, you know, you've got your developers, you've got your quality engineers, you've got your product owner, you know, your team leader that's responsible for the career progression, and sometimes a portion of those projects was, they're all sitting right next to each other. So they spin around, if the developer is almost done, you know, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna kick this back to functionally test this, you know, take a look at it, let me know if we're good, and then we'll move things forward. So it just happens faster, you're not sweet. I mean, you're switching tasks in our in our systems, ultimately, but it's more for tracking purposes for farther down the line as it is for getting these actual software out there. So it saves us a lot of a lot of time and wasted energy that happens when it's you know, back and forth over email or systems or, you know, even overseas, you know, a lot of people that don't, they don't be most, most companies don't work together anymore. You know, everything's over the computer, people are working from home. But when I look around every day, like the amount of people that are talking and engaging and solving problems, it's, you can see why it makes such a difference of like, why we're so successful, because you're getting the answers that you need instantly. And that's a culture right, where everything is moving. People want instant answers.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 18:08

And I imagine that also then translates to further employee satisfaction, right? When they are not having to hunt things down or getting frustrated with email or whatever. Right? Like, because they are having an open dialogue with their colleagues. That just adds further. You know, fulfillment along Oh, yeah.

Jillian Mantua: 18:28

Yeah, it ultimately it takes away the excuses, right? You're never you can't ever say I'm waiting on someone. No, you're not. Yeah, like, unless it's a vendor we're working with, like, Who are you waiting on? Like, you know, one of the SVP is good, I see as doors gonna, you know, he's probably in a meeting until 430. And there's gonna be a switch, there's gonna be a enter, you know, someone's gonna come out, someone's gonna go, and you can pop your head in there and say, Are you good? With what? You know? Are you good with this? Okay, we're gonna move forward. Right? So all those things are and I think the, the happiness that you get of having, there's lots of small engagement that happens to at a personal level of getting to know people. And there's so much support for people personally and professionally here, right? Because there's these conversations that happen when you're getting your lunch in the kitchen, or when you're standing in line, and are you cafe or when you sit down with somebody that you don't know, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, I want to get into it. I've been in operations for four years here, and I'm interested and they end up sitting with me, and we kind of talk through it. And then you end up meeting for coffee, because we've got the Starbucks here and then greenlit another coffee place on the other side. Yeah. So there's all these like micro interactions that are happening, hundreds of them per day with everybody where when you're up, you're moving around the campus, because that's how that as you saw the campus is designed. And when you're going to meet somebody to get an answer, you're again, you're moving and so you're crossing paths with so many people, and you're fostering these deep relationships that aren't just your team and it's not just your, you know, 10 person team or your 40 person team. You're interacting and engaging at many levels like a massive like a massive campus. You know, when you think of a college campus or a big community like that, that It's really what it is. And it really fuels a great environment for, for driving things forward. So I love it, it's a buzz, there's always a buzz here to

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 20:08

it is there very much true. So, so let's pivot a little bit about your team and your training team and how that's kind of evolved in what are you are focusing on because you know, how, one of the things in that I see and struggle with sometimes in in my specific industry in life sciences is that there's a, there's not a primary focus on training, it's kind of a byproduct of, or, as a result of a finding, or, you know, a checklist that has to get done. My industry also tends to have a lot of SOPs to read and understand. And that is the crux of that training. And that might be all that it is. And it's not necessarily like even like two or three, it could be like 50 SOPs that they have to read and understand, but that's the only thing that they have. So So I wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit, if you can share some of what what's been successful for you, how you like what you've done, and how large of a group you do, based on who you support as well, because I think some of these things are very unique and have been very successful for you.

Jillian Mantua: 21:27

Yes, so, you know, our training team, as a company has been recognized, you know, throughout the world, ultimately, a lot of, you know, magazine coverage, and just a lot of accolades that we've received in the last several years, my real focus with IT training has been that's been my sole focus really, for the last year and a half. So prior to that is application development, you know, product development, in lots of other areas. And now it's been solely, you know, it training. So let me think back to kind of what you were describing. So I think that our again, back to our culture a little bit like, our culture fosters an environment where we want to scale people up. And we want to hire people with a great attitude and a great work ethic and everything else we can train them on, ultimately, like if they come in everyday positive, and they want to work hard, and they're willing, like we're willing to invest in them and invest in their future. So we do a ton of that at the company, a lot of internal mobility happens, where someone comes in at a $15 an hour job, and then they progressed to the company. And all of a sudden, they're a software developer, you know, three or four years later, just because they had a great work ethic and a great attitude. So my training team, it's grown a lot in the last year and a half. As everyone out there knows that's listening, that works and technology, like it has been a challenging market to hire for technology, I think it's been for probably the last decade, you know, to hire and grow your team. And, you know, our, you know, our C level executives and having the foresight to know that we have to have strong programs to bring people in and bring people up and train them is going to be our best shot at success and building a super strong, you know, information technology team and then being able to supplement with some external, you know, more talented hires and more seniors that can kind of help us on that side. But so we've created a lot of developmental programs. Within it training, it's been, we're on like our prior 20th iteration of a handful of them. So software developers, business analysts, and quality analysts, and then quality engineers, so two separate quality roles that we have developmental programs for last year, we rolled out many more developmental programs, Salesforce, it can be really hard to hire for. So we created our own our in house training to take people into Salesforce developer roles or Salesforce admin roles. I think our Salesforce team is I don't know how large they are there. They've grown tremendously, I think there's five different teams that work under Salesforce and Jackie donor VP over there, DevOps. So DevOps has gotten big, right, and DevOps engineers, and understanding all the tooling and technology that comes with that, and growing people into those roles. So we have a DevOps X program that's rolled out. So foundationally, our training team has created a lot of these entry level development programs, to get people in the tech space and get them to like, ultimately a high performing level one. So we'll take somebody that knows nothing about training, or maybe they've been to a tech boot camp. And then they get into our program, tough process, we get a ton of applicants. So externally, and this wasn't always like this. It's obviously built up over time of people that want to get into technology. But you know, a lot of times we'll open the post externally, and it can only stay open for a day because we'll get so many rounds. Yeah. Which is great. It's great for us, so we just have to find a good filtering. Alright, a good filtering process internally is the same way. You know, we take a lot usually we take about 75% internal candidates for most of these programs, and everyone's waiting for them to open everyone's applying and now it's you know, who's ready for it? Who's Don't eat the most who's done as much as they can to learn about our teams and those roles. And now we're really taking the best of the best the hungriest people internally and they are thriving, we are seeing just every program, people are getting better and better, they're hitting the floor, and they're producing faster than ever, people that are coming out of our programs, and they're deploying to production. You know, within two weeks, they're deploying their first stories into production successfully, which is huge. It's huge for our teams that are supporting them, or product owners that are teeing up small items. And you know, our training team that supports them even post the program after they've graduated from the programs. We have a lot of all of our programs are instructor led in person. So there is some small online curriculum that they do that computer based trainings that we've created. But all of these programs we've we've built from scratch, instructor led courses, quizzes exams throughout, just like you would see, you know, on a cot will not college anymore, a lot of colleges have moved to online, right? You know, but what you have seen before, in terms of lots of classes, they're attending 40 hours a week paid training, and coming out of it ready to, you know, hit the floor, we did something fun, because I always like to get creative. And we were having a challenge a year and a half ago, where we were just tossing these people on teams, and there was no process in place. And it was it was a it was a bit of a mess, to be honest. You know, the leaders didn't know if they needed on what they were expecting them. They're kind of just getting these people and they were showing up one day, and we were like, we've already trained them, they're ready. And then they would just get plopped and there was no preparation, no, no good onboarding process. And so we recognize that as we grew, and we created a draft. So we do you know, like you'd have an NHL draft or an NBA draft. So we created a drafting process where there's a for this round that we have going on, actually, we're about to send out a scouting report, where we take all the trainees that are in these programs, and you got your their picture, and you've got some basic stats that we got from how they got out, you know, where they came from in the business or where they came from externally, how they're performing in the program, what teams they would like to be placed on or areas that they're interested in a personality, predictive index, you know, we'll run one of those to kind of do personality matches and things like that as well. And then we provide all that to the leaders that are going to be getting a team member that are eligible to receive a team member. And then the day that they all get drafted, you know, we do like a first round draft pick. And it's a whole experience where they get to select their team member out of these developmental programs. And it's created a much better engagement with our IT training, and then our leaders that are receiving people, where before there was the you're butting heads almost a little bit, right, just because there's, there's a, I don't want to say an artificial barrier out. But there was just a, we did our job, but now we'll throw him over to you. Right, just like technology, right? I wrote the requirements. And now you guys do

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 27:48

this. And so is it more collaborative?

Jillian Mantua: 27:51

Yes, it's much more culture, like how we do things here. And so, I mean, the CTO comes like he gives a speech to everyone we bring everyone in at the end, people are, you know, celebrate people who had banners for their people made, you know, T shirts and things like that for their new people. And it becomes this experience where they're getting accepted onto a team, the entire team knows that they know that they wanted them. And that becomes a really great experience. So those are, those are all the fun things that we get to do, just because we have the autonomy to do them here. Like nobody's telling us not to, you know, we throw it out there to the CTO, and he's like, sounds great, do it, like invite me. So I can come and watch it all happen. So we have a lot of support, I think at the company. And so when you have that people can get creative, and people can do their best work. And that makes a huge difference when you're not put in this box artificially, you know, you just put good people in the role, and now they're driven to become successful and driven to produce great people, and they're proud of these programs. And these, you know, these great things are happening. So,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 28:47

so that was one of the things that you were explaining on when we were on the tour, right? You know, the concepts of there's no offices other than what like a handful, like three, maybe four offices, true offices.

Jillian Mantua: 29:01

Just ask VPs and hire are the only ones I mean, VPS are on the floor, you know, team leaders on the floor or assistant vice vice presidents. Yeah, they're all out there on the floor with everyone else. Yeah. So no barriers. There's

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 29:12

no barriers. There's no pupils, right. So you can see for miles, which it's literally miles because you guys have so many people, right? But so you can see the entire floor. There's a very well, not the New York Stock Exchange sort of feel, but there is that sort of feel in a fun way. I guess the best way to Acts, you know, there's not all that hype and in craziness, but there is a very, you said before maybe collegial sort of way of of being right where Yeah. Felt very included. I felt included even just being there as a visitor right, which is really, really unique around the leaders and one of the things. What I like about what you're saying and how you're you're able to elevate what you're doing is because it's coming from the top down to, right. So it's they're giving, the top is telling you, you have the autonomy to do what the right thing is to do and and build that culture. And then from the bottom up, they want that too, right? So there's a bit this very organic sort of growth mindset. I see, when I was there. How does that play out in terms of the ability to adopt new technology and innovation that you guys have, and thoughts around that?

Jillian Mantua: 30:43

Yeah, our CTO is like, word of the year is like, fail. You know, he's like, fail fast, you know, and fail. Because you, that's how you learn the most. And a lot of our IT meetings recently, you know, with all of us, it's, he's always telling the story about that even, there's a great one that he talked about, of when you work out, like you have to work your muscles until failure, and they break and that's how you rebuild stronger. And like, that analogy just stuck with me, right? It's like, you have to push yourself to the point of making mistakes ultimately, and, and then you have to be able to be ready to recover, you know, in the recovery of those things. So I think that the our, our highest leaders, they're very okay with failures. Even years ago, you know, in the space, we were pushing out technology, and we're like, oh, it's not ready, it's not ready. And he's like, yeah, go, like, push it out anyway, and we're like, it's gonna be a hot mess. And he's like, Okay, well, we'll figure it out, you know, we will, like, I'm confident you guys will figure it out. And what we got really good at was was solving bugs quickly, right, and identifying them quickly. And we start, you know, through our own, knowing there'll be pressure on us always, as we got better and better at that, because there was always this push to like, it's okay, we know they'll do the best you can, and then learn once it gets out there, let's, you know, put your feet to the fire and learn. And those have been great experiences, even from training, you know, we try things all the time, and we have the autonomy to try. Whether it's a new technology or a new process we're putting in place, put it in, try it. And if it doesn't work, just change, just be ready to recover and change. We've rolled out oh, gosh, the number of technologies we rolled out last year is is insane. And the new ones that we've on boarded, to try them and see if this solves a problem. Great, let's move forward with it. And if it's going to fix it, and if it doesn't, then let's just let's reverse and let's go go a different direction. So, you know, the CEO always talks about speed solves everything is do it. But do it quickly. You know, don't don't overthink it, Don't overanalyze it. Like, if you have a problem, and this is a solution potentially to that problem, you know, spend a little time vetting it, and then just drive drive it forward and see if it's all set. So,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 32:44

so along those lines, I mean, mortgages are highly regulated, too. Yeah. Right. So one of the so let's talk about quality culture, and changing the quality mindset. One of the items that, you know, in life sciences, there's often often this push and pull, you've now sat in some of our women and CSV meetings, where you've heard this kind of, you know, very risk averse perspective, from some, right, and then there's the other side of, you know, the push to innovate, right. And so we see this a lot and, and from the quality units in particular, and life sciences of this, this push and pull. We can't do this, because it's too risky, or we're afraid of an audit finding or that sort of thing. You guys are highly regulated. How do you balance? And where does your quality group come into play in all of this?

Jillian Mantua: 33:46

You know, we've got, of course, we've got good, you know, automated regression testing. And we've got I think we've got a lot of semis that have been here that are they they do know, the inner workings of they know the critical mistakes, like there's not I don't know why it feels so low risk, necessarily. You know, there's a clear understanding, maybe it's the global knowledge that we have across the floor of all of our, you know, of our systems in general, and all the business knowledge that's there of common pitfalls, like it's just innately known by a lot of the groups of you, that's not well, that won't work. That would be catastrophic. You know, that's catastrophic. And that's just well known, I think, throughout many of the people. Maybe even because of all the training that we had as a as a company, you know, it's very clear. And then there are safeguards that are put in place from a technology standpoint, where those critical safeguards are already long in existence and in place and redundancy. Right. So I think we get away with

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 34:43

doing Yeah, so you've actually layered in the systematic structures to to guard against those. Yeah, and I'm guessing though, if and when new regulations come out, there is a team that kind of obsessed Is and looks at that structure. Yeah, yeah.

Jillian Mantua: 35:03

I mean, there's so many changes that happen within mortgages constantly, right from products or from conditions or oh gosh, over COVID, think about all the things changed with, you know, verbal verification of employments, we were just talking about earlier before we started the call. And you know, what comes with that there was mass change that happened, but again, our ability to be here in one building and adapt quickly to those things, there was lots of conversation that solved those problems, you know, rapidly for us. And again, I think it's a lot of the long invested Smee knowledge that we have on the floor of we know this, we understand this, and we can make these quick changes and quick pivots. And over time, it's just we've built up, you know, a levels and levels, I think of behind the scenes safeguards to protect us from anything that's, that's big or catastrophic, but changes or just changes, you know, there's this new product, and you have to have this new document that goes out good. We've done that 100 times, you know, 1000 times probably

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 35:54

so interesting. So how, like, so how many systems do you guys have? And like, are we talking like dozens, hundreds?

Jillian Mantua: 36:03

So I mean, we have to we have a handful of main systems. Right? So there's one main system for our brokers that our brokers are mostly engaged with. And there's some subsystems that are auxilary, I think off of that for marketing purposes, or, or other connections, but there's one main system for our brokers that is the primary system, and then there's really one internal system for our internal operational people that they primarily work out of. So there's two major systems and then how

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 36:30

do they change over the course of the year? Are you doing like

Jillian Mantua: 36:34

quarterly from like a compliance from like, a compliance standpoint? Or just technology changes? Yeah,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 36:39

technology change? How much?

Jillian Mantua: 36:41

Every, I mean, every 48 hours, we're pushing to production. We're pushing data, we're, I mean, daily, there's teams that are pushing constantly like CI CD. Yeah, so it's a constant. It's funny, I remember years ago, many years ago, when I was new in it, I think I mentioned, we were struggling because we were doing like 2am deploys, because we had to take our systems down, right, so we had to do it. And we're, we handle west coast. So you know, 2am is 11 on Pacific time. And in order to push in any technology, we had to be on at 2am. And sometimes we went till three or four, because there was issues with the builds. And there was all sorts of problems that were happening. And finally, we were sitting in the room with the I think the CEO and the CEO at the time, I was like, you know, Amazon pushes to production every 30 seconds. And I feel like at that point, we were like, well, if they're doing it, like we're gonna figure out a way to do it. And with Jason coming in, he really started to make those pushes to like, we have to get to a CI CD battle, we have to be able to deploy whenever, however, we need to when businesses going when it's not, you know, so that was a that was a huge push for

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 37:50

because he was critical to this. I mean, that is your business, like your entire operation lives and dies based on that technology. And so therefore, it has to be right. Yes, as critical as it is. So all of the training that you're doing supports that it there are other training groups for that support other parts of the business as well. Yes. When you look at where you're at today, and, you know, wanting to develop new leaders within the organization, I'm also guessing just based on what I've seen from the mission values that you all are, that's part of the process, right? So to, you know, that growth and development path for everybody is kind of laid out. Is that

Jillian Mantua: 38:38

true? Oh, yeah, um, there's, I mean, there's so many options, and so many opportunities that have arisen over the years for people to move into leadership roles here. But there is we have an entire leadership development training team that's focused on not just getting new leaders and but also growing our current leaders. And they're doing, there's five trainings that we're all leaders at the company are attending right now to, you know, refresh, refresh, and then teach us emotional intelligence, right, how we run our huddle. So we're required, you know, at the company that we're huddling our team daily, so there's a daily huddle. And often there's a playbook of here's the things that here's the communication that needs to come down to the team members from the top all the way down, not an email on this, but from the leader down to the team members and say, here's things that are going out of the company, here's how we're performing. You know, here's, here's interesting engagements that, you know, here's when our UW M live for all of our brokers is going to happen. So there's all this great information that's shared at the senior highest senior leadership levels, and those are all brought down, you know, daily or weekly to the teams to have those engaging huddles and, and then we're trained as leaders of how to make sure it's a good huddle, because it's one thing to just share information. It's another thing to shout people out and make them feel recognized or, you know, have a positive energy and bring in great news for the day or set the tone for how you want the week to go You know, there's have a contest where people get to know each other better. So there's better camaraderie within your team. So, as leaders, it's like we're constantly, you know, we're constantly pushed and even refreshed, you don't get stale and stagnant sit at your desk and, you know, tell people what to do this is you're getting feedback from your team, and you're, you're trying to improve every day. And then I think it becomes this is a leadership here is very challenging, the expectations are incredibly high. You have to meet with everyone in your team members for 30 minutes, every single month, you cover their personal goals, you recover their professional goals, and then you give them some feedback, what they're doing well, and you know, an area potentially of opportunity. So that's all required, that's all documented. And those are amazing sessions. It's a lot when you're doing the job though sometimes, right? If you've got 16 direct reports, and it's time to prep that it's time to sit, I

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 40:47

was curious about the ratio, like how many folks that were in if it was capped to like, you know, 220, or something like there has to be a limit to what someone can really do? Well, given that that is the high bar that you've set, right?

Jillian Mantua: 41:04

Yeah, yep. Yeah, it's usually, you know, anywhere from eight to 16, is what you'll find is pretty, pretty standard. 16, mean, high, but some teams can handle it, depending on your mix, right? If you've got some veterans that have been within that can support you different than if you've got a whole new team that you've overturned, and you've got, you know, right 12 new people, that's a lot more stressful, you

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 41:25

guys have all collectively, again, from the top down has said, This is what we're investing in. And so these are the standards, these are the expectations, they are high expectations. And we are going to fund that we are going to enable you to do that get the training to be the leader that you we want you to be right. And so that is really walking the walk from across the board, which I find really refreshing in so many ways.

Jillian Mantua: 41:56

There's we got I'll just one more point that I think is important to make on leadership here. You know, we have what we call 12 leadership behaviors. And they encompass things like you know, we communicate, and we recognize, and we share success. So these are all themes that throughout everything that we do that these are reminders of like as a leader here, your job is to be a skilled communicator, to communicate to your team to communicate up to your senior leaders. And then we're actually rated on those things twice a year by our team anonymously. So they rate us and like, oftentimes you get I got a couple years ago, I got rated low and we collaborate. And when I thought back, I was like, I never asked their opinion, like I when I'm making a change, like I never get my team together and say, Hey, here's what here's our problem, how do we solve it? Here's what I think we should you know, or how do we solve this problem, right? It's how you should approach it not here's what we're going to do, which is what I was doing. And so having those feedback loops, you know, just like with good technology, it's like when you have a feedback loop like that, where the team members are able to rate the leader and say that they're doing terrible in this area, they're honest, they're very honest. And they'll tell you when you're doing great, too. So those are things that I think as leaders, we really look forward to, to getting that, you know, unbiased feedback coming our way to help us get better,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 43:07

which is something that you never learn in school, right? Like, these are things and skills that you don't learn in school. And so when you get in the workforce I was having, I did a next generation webinar recording the other day with five young folk and how the only way to get those skills is to get into a company that has the processes in place, like you're explaining, right, like is that real, like, again, the dollars in the sense and the and the purpose to really carry that out. Because that is a skill set and communication and communicating well, and feed and how to give feedback, how to participate in a team. Not everyone has gone through their schooling necessarily as part of a team. Like, maybe if you didn't, you might not have gotten the right, sort of team collaboration in that, right. And so cultivating that as a model for an organization and remind me how this United Wholesale mortgage is not old, right? This is not my third, I

Jillian Mantua: 44:15

mean, 30 years, but maybe I'm probably 40 I don't know if it's I'm approaching 40 Probably not this point. But um, you know, we they were so small up until the last 10 years, really. So it's been massive to get that scale to this level. That's what it means. Level effectively with these processes and these right behaviors and culture. Yeah, so in less

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 44:35

than 10 years, you've gone from how many to 7000

Jillian Mantua: 44:40

Oh, gosh, we were Yeah, we were to for 13 years, and I think we were about 200 or people 250 Yeah, and overnight, our peak I think we hit about 9000 But, you know, through natural attrition and everything else. I think we're down a little bit since then. Yeah.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 44:53

So it's it's very inspirational, that again, can you share a little bit about also So your what you guys do in the your philosophy around diversity, equity inclusion, because I think, you know, when I was there, it was lovely to see. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about that. Yeah, we've got

Jillian Mantua: 45:15

great, we've just got kind of more, it's more recent, when I say more recent, the last couple of years spun up the resource group. So that's been nice to see those things get off the ground, because there's big impact that those groups will make or people that become part of those groups that feel a sense of home or a sense of self, I think in those but something that's awesome to you probably noticed when you're here is like we everyone wears UWA gear when they're here, right? The T shirts are everywhere. And, you know, as part of our marketing, I mean, they sold, they were selling them, the price went up a little bit inflation, right, but it was like $6 for a T shirt, and they're super high quality shirts. So everyone was just buying shirts left and right. And a cup, it had to be two, maybe two years ago, our marketing team, they started doing a monthly design, you know, it would have been like, you know, Latino, or American Indian, or, you know, black history, and then LGBTQ, you know, was another one. And so the designs were PWM. But behind it was, you know, all the things that embody those. So you see a lot of people and a lot of our marketing things. And it's just a very cool way to bring people together and to recognize people and all the different cultures that we have here. And celebrate those, you know, at every opportunity from food that we have in the you cafe. Gosh, for our obviously our Indian population is very big in the technologies area that we have. And Diwali here is like everybody looks forward to it. Well, because you were here.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 46:40

It was beautiful. It was absolutely,

Jillian Mantua: 46:42

oh my gosh, it's, you've learned so much. And hearing people that I've worked with for years, talk about their culture and talk about, you know, the Festival of Lights and seeing the dances and trying the food that I would have never tried before that they bring in and you know, and we'll bring in a pay for it. And there's a whole buffet and then the henna tattoos, and I mean, we've really like every year, I think we get more and more invested in bringing all these different cultures here on campus together and ultimately celebrating them, and celebrating, you know, the different groups that are here. So, you know, we've, you know, you just love that it's like people, people are who they are, and they feel like they can be themselves here. And, you know, you see that all over. And it's, I was just funny, I was just thinking about that today, I was like, if I were in probably any other company or any other role, it's like I would not have all this diverse understanding of even the world of the people that have immigrated here. And hearing the stories, you know, we've got people that came from Syria, people that are Iraqi, you know, people that are Russian, and, you know, you hear about they grew up in those areas and what it was like and why they're here, and you know, how exciting it is for them to have their family here and to be able to make a great living and to work for such a phenomenal company when those opportunities weren't afforded. Right, you know, where they were. So people become American citizens here. And you should see the celebrations that the leaders and the teams have at their desk with the flags and like, you know, it's such a such a big deal. So yeah, yeah, I think culturally here with diversity, equity, and inclusion is just very, very celebrated in our C suite. I mean, there's so much female, you know, at that level, Melinda Willner, she's phenomenal. Our CEO, oh, you've got Laurel Lawson, runs our chief, you know, our chief people, officer, Sarah DeSantis, with a marketing team. And we we've got so much. You know, there's just there's so much that we have as a company that just, it's just who we got, it's just who we are and how we're operating. But there are those little tangible things that I don't even I don't even recognize them, because I'm in it every day, right? Come and see it, and I'm like, it's just who we are. It's just what we are.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 48:39

Right? Right. Like it was. There was it just brought a smile to my face, right, like just be seeing how everyone was embraced and and how everyone's well being was really taken seriously. And so and that definitely came through and that says a visitor that's not like I wasn't getting into your business. I wasn't like I was just a visitor and that's what I felt. And so it was really very impactful to me. Is there anything like nuggets of learnings that you would want to leave whether it's you know, quality folks or IT folks or anything that as you kind of lessons learned that you've had that you would like to impart on folks as we close out here soon.

Jillian Mantua: 49:32

Yeah, you know, there's a it is so intimidating, right? When you look on the outside and look in I see so many people that like, gosh, it's so hard or, you know, they don't people don't realize that it's a you know, you can learn it and once people through our programs, you know, there's such an excitement for people taking on this career, and it's so rewarding. You know, it's so rewarding to see people now that we take a lot of people, obviously, that have college degrees and summer team members that transition into full time and they work their butts off. You know what people that came from backgrounds of a bus driver, or someone that was waiting tables that, you know, have these opportunities, like you can learn, you can learn anything, you know, put your mind to it, and, you know, getting with the right company, and all those things are important. But, you know, knowing where the opportunities are, and understanding the value of what a company offers, I've seen people that have come here and have just, they get it, and they're taking it and they're just working hard every day. And all these opportunities just start opening up for them because they put their head down, and they're a great person, and they're great culturally here, and it's just the sky becomes the limit for them. And it's, it's, you know, it's exciting, it's exciting to see them light up and to see them Ignite. And to really take off, it just happens all the time. So I think the intimidation factor like for people that it's hard, but to try not to be so intimidated by things like that, and just take it out and try it or try to learn or try to get your foot in the door. With a place real important than leaders out there. I think any leaders that are listening, you know, there's investing in your people, knowing your people knowing what they want, you know, personally and professionally, those things are so rewarding to see people buy their first house or have their first child or, I mean, we have people that have gotten married, bought their first house had their you know, that have been here 10 years and to see their life like transform, and to see their career and their income go from $35,000 a year to a six figure income and technology and have crazy job security and be so valued here and successful here. And they have so much success personally, you know, to be saving and investing. Like as leaders, like I don't know, if there's anything more rewarding than that, you know, you're skilling these people up, and they are taking full advantage of it. So those are the things that are huge drivers. For me. I just I love it. You know, I love all the all the people here, everyone, every interview, you know, we get every interview person, the person that we're interviewing, they say what do you love about it, and it's always unanimous around them. Everyone's like the people, it's all the people that are here. They're just so supportive, and so helpful, and so great. They work so hard. And to your point, I think it's just the culture that has been created here. And we work hard to maintain that culture. Over time, it it those things make a difference. And it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, right? It's it's a million little things, it's a million little things that all add up from T shirts that we do to Diwali dances to how we treat each other to how we speak to each other, you know, so, yeah, I think all of those things are all the small pieces that have

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 52:37

been contagious, I will say yeah, like I left on on the high, right after just a few hours. And so if that's what I felt just after that little exposure B, I can't imagine what it's like being there from day after day. So

Jillian Mantua: 52:53

I mean, in 13 years, there's been maybe a handful of days where I don't walk in here, excited, like, there's people that talk about, you know, sitting in their car in the parking lot and not wanting to walk into their job, like I just can't even imagine like, it's exciting to come in and see and connect with people and to do the work, you know, in front of us so

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 53:12

well, Julian, thank you for sharing today. I really appreciate it. I learned a lot every time I talk with you and I value our friendship as well. Yes,

Jillian Mantua: 53:22

it's great to see you. Alrighty,

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 53:24

well take care and we will talk to you soon.

Jillian Mantua: 53:27

Okay, sounds good. Thanks, story.

Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo: 53:31

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