Here’s To

BUSINESS

MATT ISHBIA

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out for the kids to eat during recruiting visits.”

STRONG WORK ETHIC

With a degree from MSU’s business school, the overachieving third-string point guard morphed over two decades into a feisty 41-year-old chairman and chief executive. The Bloomberg news service estimates his personal fortune at $9.42 billion, ranking him as the world’s 244th richest person. Yet he still credits Spartan basketball coach Tom Izzo, along with his father, lawyer Jeff Ishbia, as the mentors most responsible for his position today.

“My father always worked extremely hard when I was a kid,” he said. “He used to come and coach my games and then go back to the office, because there weren’t computers in those days. Like Izzo, he showed me that the guy who works the hardest has the best chance.”

One of his first athletic accomplishments was Ishbia’s selection for Detroit’s youth Maccabi team at the age of 13. The Detroit Jewish News named him as the Jewish Athlete of the Year as a senior in high school.

These days, Ishbia hasn’t much time for basketball. He arrives at the headquarters of his company, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), in Pontiac by 4 or 4:30 a.m.; he remains at the office, he said, until 6 or 6:30 p.m.

“I’m competing with Rocket Mortgage, Dan Gilbert, Jamie Dimon from Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, these big guys,” he said. “We didn’t have as much money as them. We didn’t have as much access to things, but we have all 24 hours in a day, and if I can outwork them every day, I’m going to end up ahead. That’s what I’ve been doing for 18 years now, coming in and working three extra hours a day more than them. That adds up to a lot of hours of overtime.”

COURTESY OF UWM COURTESY OF UWM

LEFT: Ringing the bell on the New York Stock Exchange. RIGHT: Mat and his father, Jeff Ishbia.

MOVE TO PONTIAC

Ishbia acknowledges great affection for Metro Detroit and welcomes the responsibility of deploying his wealth on behalf of the community, especially where the need is greatest. Finding UWM’s former headquarters in Troy “landlocked” and not able to expand, Ishbia chose Pontiac in 2018 “as a place we could grow into and make a positive impact.” In November, UWM paid $23.3 million to buy the 15.8-acre onetime Ultimate Soccer sports complex, part of which will be converted to workspace and the rest for youth sports activities.

“I love Pontiac,” Ishbia said of the city, which has been one of Michigan’s most economically troubled. “My mother was a teacher in Pontiac for 25 years. I played basketball there. We’ll do some cool things with the sports center. We’re bringing activity to the city. I’ll do a school, a community center. But our biggest impact will be to run a really great business.” He noted that UWM hired 1,500 new employees since January.

Among his philanthropic activities was a $32 million donation in February to — surprise! — Michigan State athletics. The money will be used to upgrade football facilities and will include the renaming of the Breslin basketball arena for Tom Izzo.

Like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and many other billionaires, Ishbia knows that great riches come with societal expectations. “I’m newer to the game of making an impact,” said the single father of three children. “The things that are most core to me are kids, making an impact on children, and at the same time homelessness and people who are hungry.”

The pandemic hasn’t slowed UWM’s growth. While some employers point to a future mix of in-home and in-office work, Ishbia prefers keeping his team together as much as possible. When directives from the state

here’s to

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and safety precautions permit, Ishbia says employees who had been workingfrom homewill be returning. “Hey, we’ve got to follow the governor’s orders,” he said. “Most of the team is asking, begging to come back.”

STIFF COMPETITION

Today, as the chief executive officer of UWM Holdings Corp. (ticker symbol UWMC), Ishbia is locked in a high-profile competition for top spot as the nation’s top mortgage lender. The current No. 1 is Detroitbased Rocket Companies Inc., also known as Quicken Loans, headed by Dan Gilbert, another Jewish kid from the suburbs who attended Michigan State.

United Wholesale Mortgage was originally known as Shore Mortgage, a 12-person company founded in 1986 by his dad. It now employs 8,500.

In January, UWM emerged as a $16 billion publicly traded corporation via a merger with a SPAC — special purpose acquisition company — controlled by Alec Gores, brother of Detroit Piston owner Tom Gores. The innovative technique for converting companies to public ownership lately has seized the stock market’s imagination. It’s a financing method in which investors first buy shares of a so-called “blank check” company that afterward acquires its target — in this case, United Wholesale Mortgage — the renamed company subsequently trading under the target’s name.

UWM and Rocket (ticker symbol RKT), both originate home loans, though their approach is different. Rocket, roughly three times the size of UWMC in terms of market capitalization, specializes in retail lending directly to those buying or refinancing a house; UWM focuses on mortgage brokers, who shop for mortgages on behalf of homebuyers.

“Now, things are a little more center stage because we’re Numbers 1 and 2,” Ishbia said. Back in the day “they [Rocket] were No. 10 and we were No. 30, in terms of loan originations.”

As a relative newcomer to media scrutiny, the stock market and the responsibilities of being a billionaire, Ishbia appears to be enjoying himself and settling in comfortably. He likely isn’t finished with athletics, though. When I asked him if he wouldn’t like to one day own a sports franchise, he replied: “I’m very blessed and lucky to have the means to be able to buy a sports team, which is always a dream. I wasn’t good enough to play for one, so maybe I should own one, right? One day will I look at doing that? Absolutely, I will.

“Basketball is obviously my passion, so that’d be my first one, but I love all sports.”

degree from Central Michigan University in 2017, majoring in hospitality and minoring in business information systems.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has appointed Ryan Hertz, the president and CEO of Lighthouse, to the Michigan Interagency Council on Homelessness. Hertz, a resident of Huntington Woods, joins a council designed to develop, adopt and update a decade-long plan to end homelessness in Michigan. The plan includes “evidence- based improvements to programs and policies that will ensure services and housing are provided in an e cient, cost-e ective and productive manner,” the governor’s o ce said. Hertz became CEO of Lighthouse in January 2019. first official job in politics working for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He started off as a research analyst for the committee, then worked for the U.S. House of Representatives as a legislative correspondent and research assistant. “Breaking in [to the field] can be difficult and takes a bit of luck,” Feldman says. “Once you break into the Hill, you have a lot of ability to succeed.”

This was the case for Feldman. He then returned

to the committee, where he worked as a research coordinator before being promoted to senior research analyst and later deputy research director. Serving in a leadership role in politics prepared him to take on his next job as Peters’ chief of staff, where he remained until this year.

His tenure with Peters marked a time in politics where monumental moments and changes occurred. “When Gary got elected to Congress, it was during the beginning of the Great Recession and the auto crisis,” Feldman recalls. “It was amazing watching someone who had just gotten to Congress play such a significant role in helping to save the auto industry, and specifically helping to save Chrysler.” when Jewish community organizations were receiving bomb threats, including Jewish Community Centers, Feldman worked alongside Peters to secure support and physical security for the organizations. Growing up as a member of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills, BBYO and University of Michigan Hillel, Feldman is proud of the help his team was able to provide for the local Jewish community.

Peters helped lead the Senate to a win that saw all

WORKING FOR SEN. PETERS “WAS A REALLY INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY.”

— ERIC FELDMAN

PROTECTING JEWS

One area of his work hit particularly close to home. At the beginning of 2017 100 senators signing in favor of having all efforts possible from the federal government being used to investigate the threats against Jewish organizations, which in the first two months of 2017 alone saw at least 98 incidents.

Now, Feldman is looking forward to beginning a new chapter in life and continuing to influence positive change.

“Eric has extensive experience working with lawmakers and policy leaders on both sides of the aisle,” writes Laphonza Butler, Airbnb’s head of public policy in North America, in a press release. “He understands the complex policy issues that are critical to the success of our host community.

“We are proud to have Eric join our team as we continue to advocate the economic benefits of home sharing created for hosts and the communities they call home.”