MBA’s Lisa Haynes on inclusivity in the real estate industry

In today’s HousingWire Daily interview, Lisa Haynes, the Mortgage Bankers Association chief financial officer and chief diversity and inclusion officer, joins HousingWire Digital Media Manager Alcynna Lloyd to discuss MBA’s VOICES, which is a three-part series that explores the experiences of women of color in the real estate finance industry.

During the interview, Haynes explains why recent political and social events have elevated conversations about diversity and inclusion within the real estate industry.

Here is a small preview of the interview with Haynes. The transcript below has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Alcynna Lloyd:  Can you tell us the heart behind VOICES and why the MBA wanted to launch the project?

Lisa Haynes: I would say the passion behind the voices project has been on our hearts for a while as the racial unrest that was sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and so many others really gave voice to it. As conversations around diversity, equity inclusion began to increase, it just confirmed it was time for a long-overdue conversation. Just like many sectors in the finance industry, the real estate finance tech sector is no different. It’s predominantly male and white, particularly at the leadership level; the higher you go up, the more it looks homogenous. While there’s been some advancement over the last 10 years for women, mostly in terms of diversity, that advancement has not been the same across all spectrums and it definitely hasn’t been an equal movement of increase across the board. Although women’s issues have been talked about for some time, the intersectionality that comes into play for women of color hasn’t been explored. While women of color experience universal setbacks as their counterparts, there’s an added layer of complexity. So, we just decided it was time to have this conversation.

The Housing News podcast explores the most important topics happening in mortgage, real estate and fintech. Each week a new mortgage or real estate executive joins the show to add perspective to the top stories crossing HousingWire’s news desk. Hosted by Sarah Wheeler and produced by Alcynna Lloyd.