• What is your elevator pitch? Provide us with an elevator pitch on why this nominee should be considered as a 2025 Vanguard. 2-3 sentences recommended.
• Professional excellence and leadership. Provide examples on your nominee’s professional excellence and leadership within the housing economy, focusing particularly on the last 12 months as applicable. You may also include any volunteer work or trade organizations she is a part of.
• Contribution to your organization. Provide the reasons this person is so valuable to your organization, focusing particularly on the last 12 months as applicable, using metrics and specific examples.
• Getting to know you questions:
  • What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
  • What was your first paying job ?
  • What is one habit that you swear by?

The Vanguard Award is a program recognizing c-level housing industry professionals making an impressionable impact in lending, servicing, investment, or real estate.

Winners will be announced online September 2nd, 2025.

The Vanguard Award recognizes c-Level leaders that are contributing to the growth of the housing economy and its various sectors, including lending, servicing, investments and real estate. They come from diverse backgrounds, and may run established companies or start-ups, but share one common trait: an unmistakable impact on the industry at-large.

HousingWire’s internal selection committee decides on the honorees.

Nominations must be submitted via HousingWire’s official award submission application during the nomination period for the award.

It takes a significant amount of time and resources for HousingWire’s editorial team members to organize and successfully determine who will be named to this year’s list.

No. We need to have the application completed, including contact information for the person you are nominating.

You can nominate yourself, a client, a family member, your boss, an employee, or an acquaintance. The most important thing is that you state a clear, business-oriented reason for the nomination.

No. Only one nomination per person is required.

Yes, multiple executives from the same company can be nominated and will each receive consideration.

After the nomination period closes, HousingWire’s selection committee meets to review and vote on each nominee based on the information provided with their submission form and industry knowledge of the individual and their organization. We strive to come up with a diverse list that represents a broad spectrum of the industries we cover. The process takes a significant amount of time over a compressed schedule.

Honorees of the HousingWire awards programs become a part of the larger HousingWire family and are frequently tapped into for other opportunities including Q&As to promote future awards, podcast interviews, panelist opportunities at HousingWire events and much more. However, this is not a requirement for any HousingWire award winner.

No. We don’t give status reports. If we need any further information, we will contact you.

No. Publicists often submit candidates, but they do not influence the judging.

With hundreds of candidates and only a few spots available, the majority of the time we are unable to share specific feedback for each nominee who wasn’t selected. Oftentimes, many quality nominees don’t make the cut.

We understand that things change and nominees may switch companies in between the time that they’re nominated for an award and the time that the selection committee votes on the winners. In this scenario, HousingWire will continue to keep the person on the winners’ list and work with the honoree to update their awards profile to include information — if they so choose — about their new endeavor. We treat our people-based awards like they belong to the award winner. That said, once someone is selected, we believe it is fair to continue to recognize the honoree despite the fact that he/she may have switched roles.