Mat Ishbia

Mathew Randall Ishbia (born January 6, 1980) is an American entrepreneur, author and investor. He is best known for being the president and CEO of United Shore Financial Services, the parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage, the #1 wholesale lender in the nation.
Born and raised in suburban Detroit, Ishbia attended Michigan State University from 1998 until 2002 where he played as a point guard on the Michigan State Men's Basketball Team. During that time his team won three Big Ten championships, made three NCAA Final Four appearances, and won the 2000 NCAA national championship in 2000. After playing basketball at Michigan State University for four years, Ishbia served one year as a student assistant coach on Tom Izzo.
== Early life and education ==
Born and raised in suburban Detroit, Ishbia attended Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Michigan, where he played basketball. Ishbia's mother was a teacher in Pontiac, Michigan and his father was an attorney as well as an entrepreneur. His father founded several of companies, the largest being United Wholesale Mortgage founded in 1986 and is now a multi-billion dollar company. After high school, he attended Michigan State University from 1998 until 2002 where he played as a point guard on the Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team. During that time his team won three Big Ten championships, made three NCAA Final Four appearances, and won the 2000 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament championship in 2000. After playing basketball at Michigan State University for four years, Ishbia served one year as a student assistant coach on Tom Izzo Izzo's staff. 
== Business career ==
After Ishbia served as a student assistant coach, he has the opportunity to join Mike Garland's staff at Cleveland State University, which would have made him, at age 23, one of the youngest Division I basketball assistant coach that year. Instead, Ishbia made the choice to join, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), a division of United Shore Financial Services.He joined UWM as its 12th employee.
United Shore Financial Services had three divisions within the company, United Wholesale Mortgage, Shore Mortgage and Capital Mortgage Funding. United Wholesale Mortgage focused solely on wholesale mortgage lending, Shore Mortgage was direct-to-consumer lending and Capital Mortgage Funding was a mortgage lender in South Eastern, Michigan.
Ishbia started out in operations of the business and learned the mortgage process from the ground up. He had various positions within the company including an account executive as well as originating loans.
In 2013, Ishbia was named CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage and United Shore Financial Services.
In 2013, the company moved its 1,200 team members into a 300,000 square foot building in Troy, Michigan to accommodate for the company's growth and consolidate locations. Under Ishbia's leadership, the company continued to grow, hiring at rapid speeds to accommodate the amount of mortgage loan production they were experiencing. In 2015 the company was named the No.1 wholesale mortgage lender in the country for the first time and has remained No.1 since.
In 2018, the company moved its 2,500 team members into a 610,000 square foot building in Pontiac, Michigan, MI in order to have enough space for the company to grow. In 2019, the company purchased a second building across the street in Pontiac, MI that is 900,000 square feet and announced that they would be building the nation's largest enclosed pedestrian sky walk to connect the two buildings totaling their square footage to over 1.5 million square feet of space.
In 2019, Ishbia released his first book, "Running the Corporate Offense: Lessons in Effective Leadership from the Bench to the Board Room," largely inspired by how he ties in his experience on Michigan State Spartans men's basketball team into his leadership style and company culture - the forward was written by Tom Izzo.
At the end of 2019, Ishbia’s 4,700 person team led the mortgage company to break their company and industry record with $107.7 billion in mortgage loan volume, more than doubling its 2018 mortgage loan volume of $41.5 billion, making it the most volume by any wholesale lender in history.  
As of September 2020, the company employs over 6,700 team members and has already surpassed its 2019 production record of $107.7B and is on pace to end the year close to $200B in mortgage volume.
== Other businesses and investments ==
In 2015, Ishbia's company, United Shore, bought the naming rights to the independent baseball league that plays at Jimmy John's Field in Utica, Michigan, naming it United Shore Professional Baseball League.
In 2018, Ishbia launched two websites branded Findamortgagebroker.com and BeAMortgageBroker.com aimed at helping the wholesale channel grow and support independent Mortgage broker.
In 2018, United Shore signed a one-year sponsorship with The Pistons Gaming Team — the esports video game squad sibling of the Detroit Pistons. The sponsorship secured the team to wear the FindAMortgageBroker.com logo on their jerseys during its matches that are streamed online as part of the NBA 2K League.
== Philanthropy ==
In 2015, Ishbia donated $500,000 to Michigan State University to help create a new faculty fellow position with the Department of Marketing at MSU.
In 2016, Ishbia launched a program called, "Pay It Forward," to his team members at United Shore. United Shore employees earn points through the Pay It Forward program, which are converted into dollars that the company donates to the selected charities – without employees having to spend their own money. The program has helped donate nearly a half a million dollars to Metro Detroit charities. 
Ishbia also encourages his employees to volunteer and provides each employee with four hours of paid time off to put towards volunteer work for a charity of their choice.
In 2018, when Ishbia's company moved to Pontiac, MI, United Shore was eligible for $1.9 million in Tax break for its new headquarters. Ishbia made the decision to return the money to the Oakland County, Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Authority.
== Awards and Accolades ==
==== 2011 ====
* Crain's Detroit Business 40 under 40 
==== 2013 ====
* National Mortgage Professional Magazine's 40 under 40
==== 2014 ====
* Mortgage Professional America Hot 100 
==== 2015 ====
* HousingWire Rising Star 
* HousingWire Vanguard Award 
* dbusiness 30 in their 30's 
* Corp! Magazine Most Valuable Professionals 
* National Mortgage Professional Magazine's 25 Most Connected Mortgage Professionals 
==== 2016 ====
* National Mortgage Professional Magazine's 50 Most Connected Mortgage Professionals
* Mortgage Professional America Hot 100
==== 2017 ====
* Mortgage Professional America Hot 100
* Henry C. Bullough Service Award 
==== 2019 ====
* RISMedia Real Estate Newsmakers, Trailblazers
==== 2020 ====
* National Mortgage Professional Magazine's Most Connect Mortgage Professionals - Gold Level
* National Mortgage Professional Magazine's Mortgage Professional of the Month
== References ==
Category:American entrepreneurs 
Category:American authors
Category:American investors