Freddie Mac appointed Heidi Mason as executive vice president and general counsel. She brings 25 years of experience in mortgage lending, financial services, consumer protection and securities law to Freddie Mac. Mason will join the company on March 7. She joins Freddie Mac from ElevateNext Law, where she served as a partner and provided legal, consulting and regulatory compliance services to financial-services companies across the U.S. Previously, she spent 17 years at Wells Fargo, serving as executive vice president and senior deputy general counsel. Mason received a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University and her juris doctorate from Georgetown Law Center.
Sprout Mortgage announced that Samuel Bjelac has been promoted to executive vice president to lead Sprout’s national third-party originator sales channel. Bjelac will take on an expanded leadership role as he continues to grow the business among wholesale mortgage brokers and correspondent lenders. Previously, he spent four years as the company’s senior vice president of the non-QM wholesale and correspondent business channels. Prior to joining Sprout Mortgage, he served as vice president of wholesale lending at CoreVest American Finance and was divisional vice president at Carrington Mortgage Services. He also held key roles at Flagstar Bank, First Magnus Financial and Prudential Financial. Bjelac earned a master’s in business administration from the University of Baltimore and a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University.
Guaranteed Rate announced the hiring of area manager Fannie Loyola and branch manager Maggie Martinez in the Chicagoland area. Loyola, who has more than eight years of mortgage industry experience, joins Guaranteed Rate as an area manager in Lake County. Martinez will fulfill the role of branch manager in Illinois, with expertise in the markets of Oak Park and surrounding neighborhoods, including River Forest, Forest Park, Berwyn and Cicero.
Plaza Home Mortgage announced changes to the leadership of its wholesale lending team. Jeff Leinan, former executive vice president of national wholesale production, will assume the newly created role of president of wholesale production. Meanwhile, Allyson Foley has joined the team and will assume the role of executive vice president of wholesale operations. Leinan has been with Plaza for nearly 14 years. He joined the company in 2008 as a divisional executive and was promoted to executive vice president in 2018. In his new role, Leinan will be responsible for all aspects of origination, underwriting and production for the company’s wholesale lending division. Foley joins Plaza from Stearns Lending, where she was executive vice president of operations, and was responsible for operations and underwriting for the company’s wholesale platform. In her new position at Plaza, Foley will align the company’s regional wholesale operations into a more unified approach.
Planet Home Lending tapped branch manager Ruben Moreno to lead a new Las Vegas team. Moreno and his team have 15 years of mortgage industry experience.
Peoples Mortgage Co. selected Logan Barnes as its vice president of secondary marketing, based at its corporate office in Tempe, Arizona. Barnes will oversee pricing control, interest rates, the lock desk and the sale of loans. Barnes graduated from James Madison University with a bachelor’s in business administration, with a major in finance and a minor in economics. Barnes has worked in secondary marketing in the mortgage industry since 2014, most recently with DHI Mortgage as capital-markets manager.
Incenter added Shelley Duffy as senior vice president of enterprise sales. In her new position, she will be introducing C-level mortgage banking executives to Incenter’s solutions, services and technologies. Duffy, who is based in Denver, brings more than 15 years of management and executive-level experience to her role. She was previously senior vice president of enterprise sales with Computershare Loan Services, which she joined after serving as senior relationship manager of enterprise sales with Radian.
