Profile
“As I advanced in my career, I created a game plan of what I wanted to accomplish both personally and professionally as well as where I wanted to expand my skill set”
Cristy Ward,
Mortgage Connect
Dee Toal-Brothers is a 12-year veteran in the mortgage lending industry.
“Entering the mortgage industry was largely an opportunity by chance,” she says. “I began my career in real estate before transitioning into the mortgage industry. I worked in various roles from compliance to secondary markets and underwriting on the consumer side before moving into commercial lending. The result of that diversity of experience has allowed me to be a big picture manager and the only female partner in our company.”
She is now the chief operations officer (COO) for LYNK Capital, a private lender serving real estate investors in more than 30 states. Working her way up to the role was one of her greatest accomplishments, as well as continuing to advocate for greater acceptance and diversity in the office.
As the COO, Toal-Brothers is responsible for LYNK’s loan processing, underwriting and fulfillment functions. In this role, she has focused on building a team based on tolerance and respect, where each member is given the opportunity to grow and excel based on their individual strengths. She focuses strongly on developing staff and promoting from within, and nearly all of the senior roles within her department have been filled by individuals who were developed from within. Taken together, these initiatives have helped LYNK create a team that feels like a family and that has above-average employee retention and satisfaction.
As a woman in leadership, Toal-Brothers strives to set a positive example for the women in her department by exemplifying how a strong woman can bring valuable skills, such as compassion, organization and a focus on balance, to a leadership role.
“When I started in the industry, it was predominantly male dominated,” says Toal-Brothers. “I worked my way up by learning the departments and excelling in each area of the business. From that experience, I learned how to have my voice heard and lead a team to one I’m proud to say is focused on borrower experience and employee satisfaction. At LYNK, we have a high rate of repeat clients – it’s a testament to how well our team functions as a highly productive unit.”
Her personal mantra is to always work harder than her employees and to lead by example, whether it be in customer service, attention to loan quality or service to other employees.
“My best professional strength is being organized to a fault and learning to communicate effectively with a wide variety of personalities,” she says. “I’ve worked hard to streamline processes within our department and throughout the company; this, in turn, has a positive impact on our borrower experience. We’re organized as a team and can communicate quickly about loan questions, which keeps our borrowers loyal and increases our conversion of repeat business.”
In addition, as a recent survivor of breast cancer, who continued working even through treatment, Toal-Brothers demonstrates every day what it means to be dedicated to her team.
7100 Six Forks Road, Suite 335, Raleigh, NC 27615
407 476 2500
Info@LYNKCapital.com
linkedin.com/in/dee-toal-brothers-8b5259189
lynkcapital.com
Dee Toal-Brothers
Chief Operations Officer
LYNK Capital
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Milestones
“I work hard because I have always believed success is not a destination but a journey and one you have to earn every day in all you do”
Cristy Ward,
Mortgage Connect
2000–2004
2004–2011
2020–2022
Present
2022
Vice President of National Accounts at Stewart Title
2000–
2004
Executive Vice President of Sales at National Real Estate Information Services
2004–
2011
2020–2021: HousingWire Women of Influence
2021–2022: #NEXT Powerhouse Partner
2022: Most Powerful Women in Mortgage Banking
2020–
2022
Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Mortgage Connect since 2012
President and Founder of the Women Empowering Women Council since 2019
Present
Elected as Board Director of Insurtech Australia
2022
Assistant Vice President and Senior Broker at MJ Hall & Company since 2018
Present
Milestones
Aug 2022
Milestones
Sept 2021
Feb 2022
Apr 2022
Jul 2022
Aug
2022
Suncorp Bank introduces Solar Home Bonus offer for customers who are choosing renewable energy for their homes
Sept 2021
Month-on-month market share growth commences
Feb 2022
Suncorp Bank wins the Canstar award for most outstanding value in investment loans
Apr 2022
Suncorp Bank wins Money Magazine’s Bank of the Year and Business Bank of the Year awards for the fifth year in a row
Jul 2022
Suncorp Bank’s turnaround times are the lowest they have ever been. The lender becomes Australia’s first certified carbon neutral bank for both its operation and transaction services
Aug 2022
Milestones
In addition, Ward has distinguished herself by forming the non-profit Women Empowering Women in Financial Services (WEWFS).
“It was clear to me that female executives and leaders in the mortgage industry had an appetite for more peer-to-peer collaboration,” she says. “I founded WEWFS and was able to bring these executive females together. What we have accomplished as a group has been tremendous and the impact the organization has made is humbling. Our mission is to support one another through peer-to-peer collaboration and help women succeed both internally and externally at their organizations. Our goal is to expand the boardroom to have more females at the table, create an atmosphere of diversity and inclusion, and establish the building blocks for future generations of women to be empowered in the workplace – and together we have been able to accomplish these goals.”
Ward says her strongest professional quality is that customers trust her and look to her as a thought leader. She takes this responsibility seriously and sets out each day to do what she says she will do. For her, trust is an integral part of success. Client trust helps remove hurdles, employee trust facilitates customer service, and team trust enables better execution.
“I am thankful – very thankful – to be part of an industry that is always evolving, thankful to be part of an amazing company at Mortgage Connect, and thankful that I can give back to others in the work I do in our industry,” she says. “I work hard because I have always believed success is not a destination but a journey and one you have to earn every day in all you do. You will experience failures and that is to be expected. Your most successful people can speak to failure; it’s unrealistic for anyone to have a 100% success rate. In the end, it’s about how you recover and learn from those failures, and most importantly, the attitude you do it with. That can make you better every single day.”