The Senate confirmed Jonathan Gould of Virginia for a five-year term as comptroller of the currency at the U.S. Department of the Treasury by a vote of 50-45. As an independent bureau of the Treasury, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency charters, regulates and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.
The Federal Home Loan Banks Office of Finance announced that it has appointed Aparna Ramesh as CEO, effective Aug. 1. Ramesh most recently served as executive vice president and chief financial officer and treasurer at Farmer Mac and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2007 to 2020.
Title insurance underwriter Title Resources Group announced the appointment of Kevin Wall as CEO and board member, effective July 28. Current CEO J. Scott McCall will assume the position of vice chairman of the board of directors. Wall abruptly left his position as co-president of First American Title Insurance Co. in June, where he had worked since 2013.
The American Financial Services Association (AFSA), the oldest U.S. trade association solely focused on the consumer credit industry, announced that Celia Winslow has officially succeeded Bill Himpler as the group’s president and CEO. Himpler had announced his retirement plans in late 2024. Winslow has been with AFSA for nearly 20 years and has served as executive vice president and head of federal government affairs.
Residential real estate brokerage Compass announced the hiring of Mike Simonsen as the company’s first-ever chief economist. Simonsen, the founder and former CEO of Altos Research, will focus on helping Compass agents and clients better understand real-time housing market analytics.
AnnieMac Home Mortgage announced the addition of Jeff Hutchinson as senior vice president of retail production. Concurrently, the company is officially founding a division called Momentum Group, led by Hutchinson, Ian Aubourg and Rick Dionne. Hutchinson is the founder of Hutchinson Mortgage Recruiting, which specializes in talent placement and merger-and-acquisition advisory services for lenders. Momentum Group was quietly launched in 2024 and now has nearly 100 team members and projected loan volume surpassing $600 million in 2025.
New American Funding (NAF) announced the promotions of Tony Blodgett to lead the retail division for the Western U.S. and Andy Pettola to lead retail for the Eastern part of the country, collectively managing more than 270 branches and a retail sales team of nearly 1,400 loan officers and branch managers. Both will report to Pat Bolan, NAF’s chief production officer.
NAF also announced the appointment of Chris Shelton as divisional executive vice president of the Southeast retail division. Shelton previously led the East Coast sales team at Summit Funding and served as the Southeast divisional leader at Movement Mortgage for nearly 12 years, overseeing more than 1,200 loan officers and originating approximately $12 billion in loans annually.
Rate announced that Las Vegas-based loan originator Jia Mei Wang has returned to company following a stint at CrossCountry Mortgage. Wang, who specializes in lending among the Asian community, has served in the mortgage industry since 2003 and is also president of the North America Shanghai Chamber of Commerce.
Movement Mortgage announced it has hired Jeffrey Rose as regional director for California and Nevada. Rose, who previously worked in various senior roles at Bank of America for more than 20 years, will serve loan officers in those two states and support market expansion, recruitment and growth efforts.
Merchants Capital announced the addition of Serah Lee as senior vice president of originations. Based in the company’s New York office, Lee previously worked at Grandbridge Real Estate Capital, where she originated, structured and closed agency debt financing via Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Kiavi announced the hires of Tom Hallock as head of construction lending and Robert Jayne as head of originations, construction lending. Hallock previously served as chief lending officer for DPL Capital and Genesis Capital and head of loan products at PeerStreet. Jayne most recently was head of national business development at Archwest Capital and chief construction officer at Genesis Capital.
Union Home Mortgage announced the additions of Ravi Patel and Justin Allen to serve as area branch managers of the company’s Cincinnati branch. Accompanying them will be a team of eight loan officers, three loan officer assistants, a processor, a production manager and a marketing and business development manager.
ACES Quality Management, a provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial industry, announced the promotions of Amanda Phillips to general counsel and executive vice president of compliance and Savannah Prout to associate vice president of compliance.
