The CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage prioritizes “doing the right thing,” and profit follows

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Mat Ishbia: So I actually prefer where I’m at in the NBA than where I am in the mortgage business, because that’s where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve always been an underdog. I’ve always been below. I’ve always had less talent but harder work ethic, and I’ve always had to climb a mountain. Nothing comes easy. If it came easy, everyone would do it.

Diane Brady: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the people…

Kristin Stoller: … and trends…

Brady: …that are shaping the future of business. I’m Diane Brady.

Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller. 

Brady: Today we are speaking with Mat Ishbia, who is the CEO and chairman of United Wholesale Mortgage and known to many of our listeners, I’m sure, as the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns as well as the Phoenix Mercury, which is the WNBA team.

Stoller: Dual role. I think that’s fascinating. How does he do both? How does he have time?

Brady: Well, that’s, that’s an open question, because I’ll tell you, the Phoenix Suns must be taking a lot of his time right now. Nothing makes fans more, you know, irate than when their team is not doing incredibly well…

Stoller: …yes…

Brady: …with the amount of money and really aggressive, interesting moves that Mat has made. And, of course, the housing market. Kristin, my heart goes out to you, non-homeowner.

Stoller: Diane, I have to tell you, I don’t think I’m ever going to buy a home. I know that’s a millennial stereotype.

Brady: You will. I’m here to tell you you will.

Stoller: Thank you. Thank you for being optimistic.

Brady: Or not, who knows.

Stoller: But tell me, I want to hear about when you first bought a home and if you had a whole mortgage process how that went because I know nothing.

Brady: Well, I came from Asia. So if you come from Asia and you’re Canadian, first of all, your credit rating is about as good as a 16-year-old in high school here, because they didn’t take much account of my credit rating from overseas. So that made it difficult. I bought in [the Brooklyn neighborhood of] Park Slope when I was on my third baby.

Stoller: [I’m] so jealous.

Brady: And look, it did take a while. I thought I was paying a lot. When I sold in 2021 I thought I’d made a lot, and it turns out the people upstairs made even more. But I have seen the housing market become almost cryogenically frozen. Nobody wants to leave now because interest rates are going up.

Stoller: All [of] these boomers are sticking where they are, and I…

Brady: …and Gen Xers, like myself…

Stoller: There you go. Well, I want to tell our listeners, because you and I were at this amazing dinner in Toronto—two weeks ago?

Brady: Yep.

Stoller: And it was all CIOs, all Gen X, boomer generation, and they were just going in on millennials and what a lazy, entitled generation they are.

Brady: Not me, of course. I love millennials.

Stoller: You say to me, over some amazing, you know, Wagyu beef, you told everyone, give me a chance to speak. And I remember I said, you know, everyone’s coming after me, but I can’t own a home. So…

Brady: …so there’s that…

Stoller: …What do you have to say to that, people?

Brady: Well, I think it’s interesting. I’d love to hear Mat say, what’s going to dislodge this kind of stasis? We need more supply. It cannot be good for his business, because what does he do? He basically deals directly with brokers and agents. They say they are the largest mortgage lender in the country. So that cannot be good times for them.

Stoller: It can’t, and they and they say they are. But I do want to add that they have a giant rivalry with Rocket Mortgage.

Brady: They do.

Stoller: He’s called them out publicly. He’s made Super Bowl ads in the past calling them out. I think it’s a fascinating rivalry because he’s so vocal about it, whereas most people would just ignore it.

Brady: Yeah, no, I love—he’s a really interesting leader across many different realms. Lots to talk about with Mat Ishbia, we’ll be right back after the break.

Brady: The best business leaders today know the value and importance of empowering those around them, personally and professionally. By encouraging and enabling others to grow, take risks, and fuel innovation, business leaders are not only driving greater engagement and performance, but also future proofing their organization for years to come. I’m joined by Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte US, to talk more about this. Welcome Jason.

Jason Girzadas: Well, thank you. Diane, great to be here.

Brady: Innovation is about empowering the people around you, and that’s something that a lot of CEOs struggle with. How do they embed it into their leadership style?

Jason Girzadas: Well, I think there’s all types of CEO leadership styles, clearly, and proven that there’s maybe not one recipe for success, but it does require, I do believe, a commitment to inclusive leadership, where all are expected and invited to contribute around innovation. I think there’s also a collaboration and a collaborative culture that’s a requirement that’s also not something that maybe comes as naturally and has to be cultivated and be intentional about. And then also, I think giving leaders some autonomy to actually look at opportunities for innovation, look at opportunities for creative, new ideas to bring forth that requires a degree of trust and a degree of openness by CEOs in particular, to allow for that within an organization.

Brady: So Jason, I want to, on a personal note—I’m talking to a CEO here. What are some of the most effective strategies you think for fostering open dialogue, collaboration? A lot of what you’re talking about [are] the ingredients to innovation.

Jason Girzadas: Well, for me, it starts with being genuine and authentic as a leader, being clear that the single leader doesn’t have all the answers to every question, and certainly in my case, it’s inviting a very broad organization to participate in addressing the issues and challenges that we face. So I think that genuineness and that transparency and authentic leadership style is the key ingredient from my experience.

Brady: Good advice. Thanks for joining us, Jason.

Brady: Mat, thank you for joining us. I feel like you’re our first guest to have three essentially full-time hats. You’ve got United Wholesale Mortgage. [If you] Google your name, the Phoenix Suns come up. Of course, I want to say Phoenix Mercury, since you have WNBA as well, give me a sense of your identity right now. When you—how do you think of yourself as a leader? How do you divide your time? 

Ishbia: Yeah, well, time management’s a big thing. You know, United Wholesale Mortgage, being the largest lender in the country, is a big focus of my time. That’s probably the major [place] that I spend my time. But then the Phoenix Suns and Mercury are full-time gigs as well. And then I have three wonderful children I spend a lot of my time with too. So balancing time as a leader of any organization, CEO, time management is the most important thing. So, having great people around you so that you can focus on things that make an impact. So every minute of my day I’m trying to make sure I’m making an impact on improving UWM, United Wholesale Mortgage, in the mortgage world, or technology—something to make our service better, to help more consumers. Or for the Phoenix Suns or Mercury talking to whether it’s the coach or the GM, or something—the CEO over there, trying to make sure things are going the right way. Or if I get out of here in time, I get to spend time with my kids, coach their sports, be involved with the details with them, and, you know, do homework with them. All those things. So balancing time is important for everybody, and so, as a CEO, that’s even more important. But I don’t know if it’s more important. I think it’s just maybe a little more difficult. You’re trying to balance a lot of different things.

Brady: Wait, before I pass it to Kristin, you coach your kids’ teams. I want you to walk me through your day a bit, because what time do you get up? Give us a little bit of a TikTok here.

Stoller: Wow. And I think your background, Mat, is so interesting because this is, you know, your family’s company, but you started in basketball, and I know you said you’ve had a lot of your basketball experience at Michigan State really shape your leadership style. Tell us about that, and what kind of lessons did you learn from the sports world that you were able to apply?

Ishbia: Yeah, so many lessons, you know, so many lessons. I played basketball growing up and got a chance to play on Michigan State’s basketball team for Coach Tom Izzo, who’s still a great coach to this day, still coaching at Michigan State. Had a great experience. I was, I always say I had to be the hardest-working player to be the worst player on the team, you know. I barely made the team, you know, but I contributed, and I learned so much about—you know, in high school, you’re the best player, and you’re scoring all the points, all the accolades. In college, obviously, you’re the worst player, and you gotta perform differently. What it taught me, though, was everybody plays a role. You know, the star player has a role. You gotta score 20 points a game. But then the 15th player, the team’s got to be positive, encouraging, make sure that they share—they be the best practice player to compete with the best starting players and do all the details. And so it really, really was a great lesson of learning that everyone plays a role, and how will you contribute? Might be different, but you still have to contribute. And now, as the CEO at UWM, when I got to UWM, I was the 12th person here. So there’s 12 people here, a small little company. Now we’ve got 9,000 people. I bought the company maybe 10, 15 years ago now, but building it up and doing it the right way. And now as a CEO, I have a different role, but it doesn’t mean my role is more important. My job is to be the best CEO at the company. Well, my underwriter has to be the best underwriter, my marketing person has to be the best marketing person. No one has to be the best CEO but me, but I don’t have to be the best marketing person. And so everyone’s got to play a role. And so I learned in basketball that team always wins, and you want to be part of a team. And no one wins alone. I’m not winning alone as a CEO. I’m never going to win alone in anything I do. It’s always a team effort. And just, you got to figure out what your role is and dominate that role.

Brady: I love basketball. To me, it’s sort of like jazz. I was shaped a little bit—I’m mid-’90s, Chicago Bulls, Scottie Pippen. You know that guy, Jordan. What was your team growing up? And I have to say you’re the same height, I think you’re five-foot-10, as my son. That in itself is—you’re not the kind of guy people look at and say, Let’s get him on our basketball team. So the fact that you played college ball itself, to me, is very impressive. But tell me a little bit about what team really shaped you?

Ishbia: Yeah, well, growing up, you know, yeah, I was always not the tallest guy, as you pointed out and I always just had—my identity was I will outwork anyone, and I do that in the mortgage business today as well. I will come in earlier, stay later. I’m willing to put more effort in. On the basketball court, watching my team was the Pistons, the bad boys, Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, those guys. They used to beat your Bulls there, Diane, back before Jordan and Pippen won the championships. But that was my team that I identified with, and that was just the gritty, tough bad boy version. But then going to Michigan State, learning from Tom Izzo, it was all about toughness, defense, grind it out, outwork everybody. It’s not always talent that wins. It’s the effort and the attitude. And so I apply that to my business career. I applied it to my personal life. You know, great attitude, great work ethic will always win. It always travels wherever you’re at. And so that’s kind of where I’ve been, and that’s kind of where my background from basketball has come from.

Stoller: Now, Mat, when I was in college—Diane and I were just talking about this, my dream was Broadway. I want to be an actress. I realized very quickly that I didn’t have the skills to get there, but it was always a dream. So I turned to journalism, which is obviously much more [unintelligible].

Brady: This is your second choice? You’re doing pretty well. Well done.

Stoller: But I’m wondering, you know, why did you switch from basketball to business? And then, two-part question, was buying the Suns for you then a way to kind of get back to that passion, without actually having to be doing it?

Brady: One of my—by the way, one of the things Kristin may also never experience is homeownership, but we’ll get to that later.

Brady: But you know, when you talk about being the largest—I feel we should unpack a little bit the business model of United Wholesale Mortgage. And I will point out to listeners that there, I believe, was one person who recused themselves from the vote for you to get the Suns. That was Dan Gilbert of Rocket Mortgage, your frenemy, or however we would characterize it. Let’s start with the business model, because United Wholesale Mortgage is not a brand that a lot of consumers would know given who your audience is. Talk about that, and, of course, how you became the biggest

Stoller: Now Diane teased at it, but I think about three or so years ago, Mat, you had a policy that was barring brokers from working with both UWM and Rocket or Fairway or others. Do you still have that? And I know you had framed it as a way to support independent brokers. Is that strategy paying off, or is it, you know, more, just anticompetitive?

Ishbia: No, it’s been great because it’s the right thing to do. So I always do the right thing. So a lot of people might not understand the business as well as we do here and understand why we do something, but we didn’t bar anyone. What we said is, “Hey, listen, we are the best lender in the country.” Mortgage broker, you know, Smith Mortgage in Minnesota. “We’re the best. We will help you with technology.” We’ll help you with service. We’ll help you with everything so you look great. But if you’re going to go ahead and send your loans to someone that’s going to steal your clients and do things on the back end that are maybe not appropriate, then that’s fine. You can do that, but I don’t want to help you anymore.” And that’s all we said. And you know what happened? Everyone said, “We understand.” They’re with us, and that’s why we’ve been the largest lender in the country for the last three years. And it’s not even close, really.

Brady: Are you referring to, is that the way Rocket and Dan Gilbert operate? I don’t, I don’t know much about them.

Brady: How do they do things differently? I’m just curious.

Ishbia: Well, everything I said, just think the opposite…

Brady: Okay, them’s fighting words I think, which is—well, listen, I think you get a lot of credit, if that’s the right term, for being certainly an aggressive builder when it comes to the Suns. And I know you’ve got a lot of people who second-guess, et cetera. Give me a sense of your style. I mean passion, however you call it, your mindset when you go into something, is it: I have to win? Or what advice do you have? Seems innate somehow.

Stoller: Well, what is the right way in sports? Because I feel like, you know, the easy answer is, of course, defined as a winning team. But you know, when your team is not winning, what do you see success as being?

Brady: It’s a much more public role. And you know where you’ve certainly saved money. One area you spend money is on players, and it’s interesting the degree to which you’ve been in the headlines, whether it’s, you know, “How could he, how could he trade four first-round picks for Kevin Durant?” How could he do A, B, and C? How has that impacted you, just becoming such a public figure?

Brady: So it’s not an investment. I mean, I’m just curious. Like, I always think, you know, used to be, one way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and buy either a newspaper or sports team. Now, I’d say, You know what? Sports teams [are] not such a bad investment. How do you look at it? Is this a realm where you’re hoping to make a lot of money, or is it a different calculus for you?

Ishbia: Oh, no. It’s not about making money. That’s not the focus. You don’t make as much money running an NBA team or a sports team. Running a mortgage business, and doing it the best in the world, you’ll make money doing that. And obviously, we’re a public company, you can see that. But I’m doing it because it’s a passion. I enjoy it. I’m competitive, and I love basketball, and I love making an impact for fans. And how do we make it a great thing for fans throughout America and specifically our Phoenix Suns fans. So I love being part of the NBA. Adam Silver is a great commissioner. The WNBA as well. I love being part of the whole thing. And so it’s not about making money. There’s a lot of ways you can make money doing different things. This is not a money-making play. This is have fun, impact winning. Enjoy, you know, enjoy being involved with basketball again. At the same time, you make money, but it’s not even close. It’s not an investment you make money in, is the way I think about it. Now, the appreciation value of the NBA teams will go up. So I bought the team for $4 billion—in 10 years, will the team be worth $8 or $9 billion? Absolutely. It’s probably worth $5 billion-plus right now, maybe five and a half billion. So the value goes up. But it’s not about the money. Money will follow. We’re focused on winning and success right now.

Stoller: Now, speaking of money, Mat, I’ve got to ask a very self-serving question, because homeownership is becoming increasingly out of reach for people like me, for millennials, for Gen Z. What role do you think lenders should play in addressing this, and how do you see it evolving over the next few years?

Brady: You have 0% down, you launched one of those.

Ishbia: Yes, but you know what? You have to understand how it actually works. And so I always tell people, go to mortgagematchup.com. Find a loan officer and ask them a bunch of questions about your specific situation. What you’ll find is a lot of programs and options out there for you today that you can actually get a great loan, get a great mortgage, get in a house, so you can create that American dream. And so I think people are—the biggest issue is not interest rates, it’s not down payment, it’s not anything. It’s lack of education. People just don’t know the rules and how it works. And that’s not saying it disrespectfully. I’m just saying people don’t just like—by the way, I don’t know if I want to buy a car, I don’t know auto rules. Like, I don’t care, because I do it once every four years. Same thing with a house. People don’t know it, and that’s why I say you got to go get an expert. And that’s where mortgagematchup.com is helpful.

Brady: If I were to hand you a wand and send you to the 202 area code in Washington, where there’s a lot of discussion around housing, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac right now. What would you do to make the housing market better and really sort of create a policy environment that helps us? And I know a lot of this is not at the federal level, it’s really municipal and state. But where do you think we need a fix?

Stoller: Well, I think inventory, I think, is a huge issue for me and all the people I talk with, because you have these people sitting in these houses, and not only that, turning them into rentals and other properties. How [does] that affect your business? During the pandemic, there was like, a ton of rentals coming on instead of, you know, houses.

Brady: You did unpack some of your leadership lessons in your book. I have it in front of me here, and one of the chapters that I like, this is from several years ago, is that anyone can lead. Do you really believe that?

Stoller: Or should lead. There are some people we can put on pause.

Ishbia: Well, it’s a privilege to be able to lead, but you know what? You don’t need a title. That’s the big takeaway from that, Diane, is like, you don’t need a title to lead. You’re a leader every day, how you act, how you treat people, and then your title follows.

Stoller: Is there one thing that you think the mortgage industry could learn from how the NBA runs its business, that you bring over, or vice versa?

Brady: One difference, Mat, right now you’re number one in the mortgage lending business. You’re an underdog, I would say in the NBA business. Is that mentality, are they very similar to you? Because I think being on top versus being perhaps underappreciated or falling behind, does create a different leadership challenge? Is it similar?

Ishbia: So I actually prefer where I’m at in the NBA than where I’m in the mortgage business, because that’s where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve always been an underdog. I’ve always been below. I’ve always had less talent but harder work ethic, and I’ve always had to climb a mountain. Nothing comes easy. If it came easy, everyone would do it. If I came into the NBA and we won a champion [in] the first year or two, of course we want to, but I’m going to build and build it the right way and be the most dominant NBA franchise, and not only from winning, but also fan experience and doing all the things, innovating, trying new things like, to make things better for everyone, and fans, community, our team members, and obviously on the court too. And so I’m good with where I’m at with the NBA and the WNBA world. I’m great with where I’m at in the mortgage business. Everyone’s got a target on my back in the mortgage business. And by the way, in the NBA, same thing—when you come out and you trade for Kevin Durant and you have Devin Booker, you have high expectations. People love to see people with high expectations fail. They enjoy that, you know, and that if that makes them happy, it makes me happy that it makes them happy. Because anyone that gets enjoyment out of other people’s failures or struggles is a loser, and I enjoy that those people are losers and I’m not one of them. And so I’m going to continue to try to win every single day in everything I do. With my kids, with my basketball business and mortgage business. And if people want to try to chop us down because our mortgage company has a bad day or our basketball team has a bad day. I wish them nothing but happiness, because they’re struggling in life if that’s what gives them happiness.

Brady: I’d be remiss not to mention the fact you’re wearing a suit, which is not really that common, to be honest, even with CEOs. You said you’re up at five in the morning wearing a suit and tie. Why—does that help you get in the zone? It’s just honestly, not necessarily the garb of business.

Ishbia: Yeah. So we’re not like everybody else. I don’t try to follow what everyone else does. We wear suits here. My executive team wears suits. Most 700 salespeople wear a suit and tie every single day, and they’re in house sales, they’re not even going to visit clients. They’re here. We set a tone, right? I’m the leader. I feel like, if I’m dressed well, I act professional. I dress professional. And, you know, it doesn’t mean you have to wear a suit, or don’t have to wear a suit, but just because everyone else doesn’t do it, oh, because COVID came, everyone can just Zoom everything, not work in the office, and wear sweatpants, like that’s not who I am, like we come in prepared to work every single day at UWM to be the best. I’m not trying to be good. I’m not trying to be great. I’m trying to be the best in the world at what I do. And to be the best in the world, you have to be the best at everything you can do. And I can control the way I dress. I can control the way I act. I control what time I get up. I can control my attitude and my work ethic. I can’t control everything. I control my controllables and the way I look and the way I dress is important, and it sets the tone here at UWM, and everyone knows that he’s not coming in in sweats at 11 o’clock and golfing at three o’clock. That’s not the CEO Mat Ishbia. That’s not who I am, and it’s not who I ever will be.

Ishbia: You know, no, I wouldn’t. Obviously, they do good things. They just have different belief systems. Doesn’t mean that they’re right and I’m wrong or vice versa, just different than me. And so culture is important, and it’s the most important thing, how you treat your people, how you act around your people, how you treat your clients. And I have differing views on that. Doesn’t mean, like I said, that I’m the best and they’re the worst, just means we believe in what we believe, and so we’re gonna do things the way we do things here at UWM. And so I would never acquire that company. I have no desire to acquire that company. Everything we’ve done, we’re the biggest mortgage company in the country, organic. I’ve never acquired anybody. Everyone else wants to acquire. And like, we built this from the ground up, and we’re going to keep going. We’re building a skyscraper. We’re not even halfway there. We’re going to keep building. And I like doing it the way we’re doing. Not that we’d never acquire anyone, but we never have, don’t have any intentions of doing it. But Rocket Mortgage is not on the list.

Ishbia: Yeah. Well, I think two parts: one, to be a great leader. There’s one main thing I’m gonna talk about. But before I talk about being a great leader, you gotta be great first, before you can be a great leader you gotta be great. And it starts with work ethic and attitude. You control those two things every day. How hard you work? Do you get up early? Do you play on your phone while you’re at work? Are you grinding every day and do you have a good attitude? Because things aren’t always going to go straight up. It’s not always perfect. So work ethic and attitude is the most important thing. And the best part about [that] is: It’s not your degree, it’s not where you came from, it’s your work ethic and attitude [that] matters the most. So that’s first you have to be great, and that starts to work. But the most important thing as a leader is a four-letter word called care. You actually got to care. Care about your people, care about your clients, care about how you present yourself, care about every detail, and the care factor has to be at an all-time high. And if you’re not going to care about people and show them love like someone’s like, how do I make them know that I care? I’m like, you actually have to care about them. You actually have to know what their kid’s name is. You have to know what their wife’s doing for a living. You have to know where they live. You have to know that he likes the Red Wings, so let’s get him some Red Wings tickets. You have to know that this person is struggling because his father just passed away, and you go and talk, grab lunch with him. You actually have to care. And so leadership is about caring about people. And if you care about people, they’ll care about you back, and if they care about you back, you can do some amazing things. That’s what we’ve done here at UWM and so, work ethic and attitude, that’s like anti to play. But if you want to be a great leader, you care about people. You show them you care about them, you love them, and you’ll be amazing.

Brady: I can’t think of a better place to end. Yeah, Mat, thank you for joining us.

Ishbia: Thank you. Thank you. Really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks for having the time today. We’ll see you in Phoenix. See you soon.

Stoller: Our executive producer is Adam Banicki. Our theme is by Jason Snell. 

Brady: Our studio producer is Natasha Ortiz.

Stoller: Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media.

Stoller: And I’m Kristin Stoller.

LeadershipNext episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.