“A Motivator & Game-changer”

Melissa Macerato’s senior leadership experience spans over two decades, having helped launch and grow new business ventures into profitable, market-leading programs within large corporations. But beyond her deep experience, at the heart of Melissa’s success is undoubtedly her natural ability to empower and motivate others as a leader. In her role at Longbridge Financial, Melissa oversees the company’s sales teams across retail, wholesale, and financial advisor channels, in addition to the marketing department. One of Melissa’s greatest strengths is her ability to adapt to change and face challenges head-on as a leader.

Like so many businesses, when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US, Longbridge faced a truly unprecedented challenge. Melissa chose to take this challenge as a time of opportunity – and worked with her leadership team to transition Longbridge into a remote business model. Melissa’s quick thinking and adaptability paid off – the epicenter of the virus, New York, was just miles away from the company’s Mahwah, NJ headquarters. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced record earnings in 2020 stemming from persistent volume growth and improved productivity.

Amidst the rapid expansion and growth of the Longbridge team, Melissa has been a driving force behind employee retention and growth. She spearheaded the company’s newly unveiled management training program, designed to provide cross-training and leadership skills opportunities to help employees thrive in a long-term career with Longbridge. When asked about the program in a recent interview with Reverse Mortgage Daily, Melissa explains, “This program is just the latest in our ongoing commitment to providing all our employees with the resources, education, and support they need to thrive in a career with us.” She further notes, “We strongly believe in promoting within and will provide the necessary training to support our people and this belief.” 28% of current Longbridge employees have already received a promotion during their tenure at Longbridge.

Beyond Melissa’s leadership style and employee-centric approach to business, her innovative thinking has been an invaluable asset to the expansion of Longbridge Financial. She’s been especially instrumental in developing and promoting the company’s proprietary suite of reverse mortgage products, Longbridge Platinum, unveiled in 2019. The program, designed for older homeowners with higher value homes, has quickly become an attractive alternative to a HELOC.. In the Wholesale division, she’s been a big proponent in bringing the company’s Reverse Made Easy initiative to fruition, a program designed to streamline the process for new brokers to incorporate reverse mortgages into their lending operations.

As the top female leader at Longbridge Financial, Melissa’s commitment to constantly improving and expanding is especially inspiring. Whether it be a new feature or change to a product, implementation of technology to streamline business functions, or introducing a new internal role to meet workload demands, Melissa always seeks feedback from customers, partners, fellow leaders, and employees alike. Her “never settle” mentality and determination have undoubtedly been a huge proponent of Longbridge’s success and growth over recent years. And with a majority of Longbridge’s managers being women, Melissa has had an empowering impact. Another area where Melissa excels in inspiring women leaders is by being transparent in communicating the importance of boundaries, namely when it comes to the work-life balance. Armed with these qualities, the steadfast leader has been taking the company to new heights.

Longbridge was founded with the mission to improve the reverse mortgage industry through unparalleled service, expertise, and transparency. Now a leading reverse mortgage and servicer, Longbridge remains committed to responsibly helping homeowners reshape their financial future by educating them on the power of their home equity while supporting their goals. At the heart of our mission to improve the reverse mortgage industry is one-word – education. “While reverse mortgages are just one of several offerings for most companies – at Longbridge, reverse mortgages are our sole focus. Our staff has years of experience and expertise in the industry,” says Melissa. “And we’re committed to developing innovative, reverse mortgage products and solutions to better meet the needs of older adult borrowers.” IEWL