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Cornerstone staffs up to grow servicing, builder partnerships

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Cornerstone Capital Bank has expanded its leadership team to support ambitious plans to grow its mortgage loan servicing operations, make more loans through homebuilders, and build out its commercial real estate portfolio.

Formed through the 2022 merger of Cornerstone Home Lending and The Roscoe State Bank, Houston-based Cornerstone has made seven senior executive hires this year.

Scott Almy

“By investing in talented leaders to augment our existing top-tier teams, we are positioning Cornerstone for further growth and innovation across multiple lines of business,” Cornerstone President and CEO Scott Almy said in a statement.

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Dana Abernathy

Dana Abernathy, who joined Cornerstone in February as vice president of loan servicing business development, has been tasked with expanding the company’s mortgage loan servicing operations. In her 35 years in the mortgage industry, Abernathy has had leadership roles at Computershare Loan Services, National MI and PMI Mortgage Insurance Company.

Cornerstone announced in 2022 that it would bring its mortgage loan servicing in-house. Lenders that perform their own loan servicing have details about each borrower’s interest rate and loan balance, positioning them to offer homeowners refinancing when opportunities arise or to finance a new home purchase.

Mike Iorio

Mike Iorio, who joined Cornerstone in March as senior vice president of strategic partnerships, is spearheading the nationwide expansion of Cornerstone’s homebuilder partnership business. In more than 25 years in the banking and mortgage industry, Iorio has held executive roles at NewRez, Wells Fargo, CMG Financial, Citywide Home Loans and Stearns Lending

Patrick Ramsier

Patrick Ramsier joined Cornerstone this month as president, capital markets CRE, to help the bank build a commercial real estate portfolio. During a career in CRE spanning more than three decades, Ramsier is credited with building on-book commercial real estate platforms at both LegacyTexas Bank and Southside Bank, where he originated $7 billion in committed volume and managed multi-billion-dollar portfolios.

“Cornerstone enters this market with virtually no current exposure to office, retail or multi-family CRE, and possesses the capital, liquidity, systems and talent to take advantage of evolving market conditions,” the company said in announcing Ramsier’s role.

The four other executives hired by Cornerstone this year are:

  • Noah Elrod, who joined Cornerstone in April to lead the company’s corporate treasury sales and advisory business, which launches in Q4 2024.
  • Cara Williams, who joined Cornerstone as chief compliance officer this month.
  • Gina Darcy, who joined Cornerstone in March as managing director, project management and risk reporting.
  • Thu-Lynn “TL” Nguyen who joined Cornerstone in May as vice president of marketing.

In celebrating the one-year anniversary of its formation last year, Cornerstone said it was on track to originate more than $8 billion in mortgages and that its servicing operations would achieve record levels of loans serviced.

The 2022 merger with Roscoe State Bank meant the company’s loan officers became federal mortgage loan originators. According to records maintained by the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, Cornerstone Capital Bank employs 308 mortgage loan originators.

The company’s mortgage division does business as Cornerstone Home Lending, headed by CEO Adam Laird.

“With the backing of our fortress-like capital position, we’ve successfully launched or grown an industry-leading in-house mortgage loan servicing platform, new mortgage partnerships and mortgage portfolio programs, consumer digital deposits, and commercial lending,” Almy said. “We’re excited to extend that growth into treasury sales and service later this year. We consider these achievements a great start toward realizing our unique opportunities and reaching our goal of serving more than one million families, businesses and institutions nationally.”

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Email Matt Carter