Toby Harris Named HousingWire Vanguard Award Recipient

Movement Mortgage, a top 10 national retail mortgage lender, is proud to announce co-founder and Executive Vice-President Toby Harris is a 2018 HousingWire Vanguard Award winner.

Harris is part of a spectacular field of mortgage professionals chosen for their vital contributions to their companies and the dynamic way they are changing the industry.

After spending decades in the mortgage industry, Harris decided to make the change he desired to see. In 2008, he joined forces with Movement CEO Casey Crawford to form Movement Mortgage with just four people. Through purely organic growth, Movement now boasts more than 3,000 employees. It was Harris' vision of a better way to serve people that led to the industry-shattering 6-7-1 process. Through his guidance, Movement has grown to become a top 10 national retail mortgage lender in less than a decade while originating $13 billion in mortgages in 2017.

"My biggest accomplishment has been investing in leaders at Movement Mortgage," said Harris.  "My purpose is to help them develop their vision through clear, strategic and effective goals to become leaders of impact and influence."

Movement's COO John Third has known Toby for more than 30 years and has worked with him for 26 of those years. "As a fresh, new 21-year-old in the mortgage business, Toby took me under his wing and mentored me," says Third. "I can remember vividly how nervous I would get as Toby would entrust me with new tasks and roles within the company. So many of those were followed up with a conversation in his office or over lunch with Toby starting by saying in a quiet voice, 'Now son.' I knew immediately I had messed up but there was never a raised voice or a criticism, only words of encouragement and mentoring on how to do things differently next time around. It is amazing to work alongside such a visionary who truly cares about the people he works with."

Movement Regional Director Clay Duncan first met Toby when he went to Seattle to interview for the position. It was what Toby did when Duncan's flight got delayed that sealed the deal. Listen to Clay's story below.