“I’ve watched loan officers very unsafely access technology while on their phone driving a car at the same time,” Clayton told Mortgage Professional America. “And so that’s what I think of, right? When they show me technology, I’m like, ‘Could someone do this if they only have one eye on it and they’re kind of zoning out and they’re taking a phone call?’ And like, that’s my litmus bar for usability.”
Climbing a different tree
Her path ran through Countrywide, Bank of America, and home builders before Paramount Residential Mortgage Group (PRMG), where she was most recently a marketing executive. At the Mortgage Bankers Association’s mPowering You summit, speaker Hoda Kotb gave her words for what came next.
“She talked about this, ‘I climbed that tree and now I want to climb another one,’” Clayton said. “And I’m like, 100%. Like, I climbed that tree. I did all the things that there were to do in lending.”
Cotality first approached her as a prospective customer, asking whether she would buy its products. She was still at PRMG at the time.
“I said, ‘Your products are cool, but well, if you did this and this and this, maybe lenders would be interested,’” she said. “And then later on, after I sort of finished my time there, they said, ‘You know, that’s actually a job. You can help us shape products so there’s something lenders actually need and will use.’ Nobody has engineering resources to spare to build products that nobody wants.”
