loanDepot Appoints Chad Smith as Executive Vice President of Production, Direct Lending

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- loanDepot, LLC, the nation's second largest nonbank consumer lender, today announced the appointment of Chad Smith as executive vice president of production, direct lending. Smith will be responsible leading a sales production team of more than 600 licensed loan officers under the loanDepot.com brand from four national web business centers in Arizona, California, Texas, and Tennessee who are committed to matching borrowers across the country with the lending products that best fit their needs.

"Chad's vast knowledge and experience in consumer-direct lending combined with his energy and passion will be a tremendous asset to loanDepot as we continue to build our volume to exceed a five percent refinance market share in the next decade," said David Norris, president and chief operating officer at loanDepot, LLC. "I have the utmost confidence he'll be an exceptional leader for our direct lending business.  We're very excited to welcome Chad to loanDepot as we prepare for our next phase of growth."

Throughout his career, Smith has been instrumental in building production teams and in driving revenue growth for national, publically traded consumer-direct lending companies. Most recently, he served as senior vice president of production at Discover Home Loans, a division of Discover Financial Services. In this role, Smith oversaw all mortgage production and is credited with growing the company's mortgage business through both organic and M&A transactions, while building two personal lending sale production teams. Prior to that, Smith was the senior vice president of production at LendingTree Loans where he led sales and processing teams across six states generating more than $4 billion in annual fundings. While at LendingTree Loans, he also served as both a vice president and director of home equity.

"I'm thrilled to join loanDepot. The company's growth and sales performance has been incredible in just five years. I'm looking forward to continuing to grow the production team and building upon the company's success," Smith said. "I am excited to work with loanDepot's leadership team and the organization in supporting its growth and profitability objectives by further increasing the level of performance of the production sales teams nationwide."

Smith is an accredited mortgage professional registered with the Mortgage Bankers Association and is SAFE licensed through the National Mortgage Registry. He lives in Orange County with his family, is a graduate of Northern Arizona University and holds a Six Sigma, Champion Training-Interactive Corp from Lending Tree.

ABOUT LOANDEPOT LLC
Launched in 2010, loanDepot LLC, is the second largest nonbank consumer lender and second largest retail mortgage lender in the country with Retail, Consumer Direct, Wholesale, Affinity and Servicing operations. loanDepot LLC operates under the brand names of loanDepot.com, imortgage, Mortgage Master, and LDWholesale. The company maintains dual corporate headquarters in Foothill Ranch, CA and Plano, TX, is licensed in all 50 states, generates loan production from four technology business centers and employs 3,700 people that includes 1,300 licensed mortgage bankers.  The company operates 130+ imortgage branch locations across the nation under the imortgage and Mortgage Master brands.  loanDepot is an approved seller and servicer for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae.  loanDepot.com, LLC, NMLS # 174457 Learn more at loanDepot.com.

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SOURCE loanDepot, LLC