This episode will air on October 7, 2026

Rich Swerbinsky is one of the most connected people in the mortgage industry. His career began in the mid-1990s and has spanned nearly every seat in the business, including leading lending divisions at banks before spending eight and a half years as President and COO of The Mortgage Collaborative, where he helped grow the network from 4 lender members to more than 300 and built relationships with executives at hundreds of lending companies across the country, a network he still serves today as a strategic advisor.

He's now the founder of Onward & Upward Consulting, where he advises lenders and executives on growth strategy, executive recruiting, personal branding, and practical AI adoption, and the Executive Director of the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association, where he leads advocacy and education for the state's lending industry.

He writes Swerb's Blurbs, a widely read industry newsletter that's read by over 25,000 industry professionals and speaks at conferences and company events nationwide. Now in his fourth decade in mortgage lending, Rich is known for saying what everyone else is thinking.