Digital Mortgage Direct Page

StellarFi, Lamine Zarrad’s new startup, covers consumers' utility and other bills when they hit a cash-flow crunch. It then reports their repayments to the credit bureaus.

Inflation isn't only driving up travel costs — a key category for credit card spending — it's making shoppers more selective about how they earn and redeem loyalty points for products hit hardest by price increases.

Juliette Kayyem, a veteran crisis manager, explores practical steps leaders can take to be ready for the next disaster in “The Devil Never Sleeps.”

Business owners are seeing their cash flow strained by the highest inflation in 40 years and mounting costs to borrow money.

Jim Blachek is the CEO of Dynamic Benefit Solutions.

Tracey is the director for small commercial underwriting at Verisk. She is responsible for the strategy and execution of small commercial and casualty underwriting products, focused on powering automated underwriting and digital transformation in the industry.

Deb Smallwood, Senior Partner at Strategy Meets Action, a ReSource Pro Company, is widely recognized as an industry thought leader who is known for her “big strategic thinking with pragmatic approaches to transformation.” Deb challenges the status quo of insurance and influences the industry to reimage the business of insurance for the digital connected world.

Deb’s passion is to advise carriers and MGA’s to create transformation strategies and plans by bringing clarity to the possibilities of change and innovation. For over 30 years, Deb has helped hundreds of clients transform their businesses driving high business value and success. Deb’s deep expertise is commercial lines underwriting transformation and how best to leverage customer experience, digital enablement and transformational technologies and data.

Prior to launching Strategy Meets Action, Deb held a variety of leadership roles including VP of the insurance practice at Tower Group, Chief Transformation Officer (CIO) at Insurance Company of the West (ICW), Partner at KPMG LLP, and Head of Commercial Lines Application Development & Maintenance at Liberty Mutual.

Deb is often asked to contribute to major insurance publications and is also a frequent keynote speaker at leading industry conferences.

Edward Webb currently serves as BPM’s advisory partner, offering over 35 years of experience in consulting and financial management, including specific experience in transaction advisory services for both healthy and stressed companies. A published author and speaker, he currently leads the Corporate Finance Consulting Group at BPM and sits on the firm's Management Committee. He holds a doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in ownership transition from Temple University, as well as an MBA with a focus on finance from Indiana University. He was born and raised in suburban Philadelphia before moving his family to California. He may be reached at ewebb@bpmcpa.com.

When Goldman Sachs executives set out to woo investors in early 2020, they offered a promising outlook for their novelty Main Street business. The unit would go from a money-suck to break-even in 2022. It isn’t quite working out that way. 

Penny Crosman, Executive Editor, American Banker; Mike Cagney, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Figure