Mills Landon

In this role I provided organizational leadership and collaborated with executive partners to establish long-term goals, strategies and company policies. I acted as de facto Chief of Staff, interim CFO, and supervisor to the successor of my previous MD role at Supreme’s affiliate AMC. I was the CEO’s ”right-hand”, taking the lead on several enterprise transformation initiatives, collaborating on strategy and tactics, casting the organizational vision, and driving planning and execution. I was consistently able to get alignment across departments, catalyze commitment, and deliver on-time, under-budget project management to adhere to project road map. I oversaw technological improvements, including vendor selection and contract negotiations, successfully reducing waste and eliminating business bottlenecks.

Notable successes include:

• Stood up a new Loan Origination System in a record 9 months (as assessed against industry standards)
• Integrated 2 new point-of-sale systems with more than 70% adoption across national sales teams
• Implemented a proprietary sales-facing technology hub, educating users on “best fit” and highest ROI
• Implemented an automated 3rd party warehouse management system, reducing borrowing costs by nearly $40 per funded loan
• Rolled out PowerBI to enhance our reporting platform to drive behaviors through robust analytical insights across the enterprise

As CFO I formulated and delivered financial and budget reports for investors, stakeholders, and executives. I monitored business trend forecasts and adjusted budgets and operational plans to maximize profit growth and opportunities. I oversaw requisition and procurement processes to guide optimal purchasing decisions. I enhanced our proprietary financial reporting platform to reflect growing organizational complexity and managed financial reporting processes to validate internal and external financial results align with GAAP.

Day-to-day tasks spanned cash management, P&L forecasting and analysis, warehouse management, pipeline aging resolution, project ROI evaluation, department budget oversight, and providing subject matter expertise on executive committees.

Key achievements:

• Negotiated favorable pricing with 3rd party vendors and developed efficient staffing models to keep costs to originate an average of 16.1% lower than industry peers from 2017-2019
• Managed $920M in 5 warehouse banking relationships, driving down borrowing costs by over $30 per unit after negotiating better margins and championing an enhanced document custodian process
• Implemented a 3rd party sales compensation management system - eliminating 95.3% of
  manual calculations, and reducing payroll errors by 24.2%

At MyAMC, a small appraisal management company (40-50 headcount) my mandate was expansive. Over a five year period I successfully drove the transformation of the company into a dynamic organization that realized substantial growth and exceptional financial results, including:

• Over 200% increase in profitability
• 167% per month increase in customer orders
• Reduction in overall costs of 21%
• 31% reduction in appraisal defects
  significantly improved customer and employee satisfaction

I set the overall strategy and managed day-to-day activities. I led B2B sales to expand our lender customer base, as well as providing hands-on leadership for operations, compliance, marketing, and proprietary software development. I also managed our P&L, vendor, and lender partner relations. Using my skills as a servant leader to motivate and support my team, we were able to constantly iterate on business processes and initiate key change management programs to achieve continuous improvement.

After completing my MBA, I joined Capital One to develop my experience in Operations. I directed a team of 3 Unit Managers and 50 associates, leading the facilitation of critical business process management projects that created an unassailable customer experience across multiple auto payment channels. Drawing on my communication and leadership skills, and my expertise in root cause analysis, I helped inspire a continuous improvement culture that consistently delivered exceptional operational results.

A notable achievement was the departmental implementation of a visual workflow display to help the team refocus on critical to quality metrics, resulting in a 40% reduction in misapplied payment errors for Q3 2012.

Following the fallout from the financial crash of 2007, I decided to pursue an Executive MBA. Consequently, over the next three years, I combined my full-time studies with managing a branch for Texas-based retail mortgage loan originator, Network Funding.

During my tenure, I successfully helped hundreds of Texans finance home purchases, while simultaneously managing the business’ P&L, and facilitating relationships with numerous realtor referral partners in the DFW community.