AIME names Jonathon Haddad as new CEO and chairman

Jonathon Haddad, president of Next Door Lending, will replace Katie Sweeney as the chairman and CEO of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME). Sweeney is stepping down to become the CEO of the affiliated lobbying group Broker Action Coalition (BAC).

AIME tapped a relative newcomer to the broker channel to become its CEO. Haddad joined the channel in 2020 at Next Door Lending, where he transitioned from vice president to managing partner and president. Before that, Haddad spent about six years at Quicken Loans, starting as a senior mortgage banker in 2013 and ascending to regional vice president. He left Rocket in the beginning of 2019.

AIME announced Thursday that Haddad, an AIME member, starts immediately as the CEO and will assume the chairman role on April 1. 

Haddad’s nomination shows AIME’s commitment to attracting more retail loan officers to the broker channel. According to the trade group, under his leadership, it will focus, among other initiatives, on “retail to wholesale originator recruitment.” 

“I’ve seen both sides of our industry, and I can wholeheartedly say that the future of mortgage is with independent brokers. I made the decision to put homebuyers first when I moved into the wholesale world, and now, I’m doubling down on my commitment to them and the entire broker community,” Haddad said in a statement. 

Per Inside Mortgage Finance estimates, the broker channel accounted for just above 16% market share from January 2023 to September 2023, lower than the correspondent (29%) and retail (55%) channels. The analysis includes first-lien mortgage originations. 

Brokers originated $63 billion in mortgage loans in Q3 2023, down from $67 billion in the previous quarter and $67 billion in Q3 2023. 

Haddad’s leadership will also focus on enhancing “business support for the nation’s wholesale brokerages” and implementing “pro-broker awareness within the community and external organizations.”  

According to mortgage recruitment platform Modex, Haddad originated about $17 million across about 50 mortgage loans in 2023. Next Door Lending’s overall mortgage volume was $595 million, per Modex. 

Haddad’s predecessor, Sweeney, was promoted from AIME’s executive vice president of strategy position to CEO in 2021. Before joining AIME in 2020, she worked on sales and strategy at broker tech startup ARIVE. She is also a former vice president of lender Pacific Union Financial, which Mr. Cooper later absorbed.

Sweeney is stepping down to become the CEO of the BAC, which was created in 2022 to improve communication between mortgage brokers and their legislators. She will focus exclusively on public policy advocacy and political activities on behalf of the industry.

In a recent interview with HousingWire, Sweeney said, “We have been spending more and more time over the last 18 months focused on the work in Washington, D.C., on industry accountability, on product reform where we really just found ourselves and me, in particular, trying to split time between two organizations that deserve full-time attention.”  

AIME has a total of 65,000 members. BAC was able to engage more than 50,000 AIME members, Sweeney told HousingWire.