Mortgage Harmony Corporation, a provider of innovative residential mortgage products, has announced the appointment of Shane Chalke as president. Prior to joining the company, Chalke founded and recently sold Finetre Corporation, an electronic platform for buying and selling annuities that transformed the delivery of annuity products. Mortgage Harmony’s core product, Harmony Loan, is a consumer-initiated interest rate-resetting mortgage with a patented recurring compensation structure to the loan officer. It is designed to realign the economic incentives among all participants of a mortgage transaction and bring long-term stability to the housing finance industry. As president, Chalke will oversee the commercialization of the company’s products.
“The residential mortgage model in this country is severely flawed and we believe our product is a harbinger of much-needed change,” said Keith Kelly, founder and CEO of Mortgage Harmony. “Shane’s track record of changing the way industries do business is precisely what we need to be successful.”
An actuary by training, Chalke founded AnnuityNet in 1997 to re-engineer the variable annuity market by automating the sales process and stripping the steep broker commissions from the equation. In 2000, he renamed the company Finetre and evolved the business model to become a business-to-business exchange, which ultimately handled more than $80 billion in annuity transactions for the nation’s largest brokerage firms.
“After sitting on the advisory board of this start-up for six months, I was compelled to accept their offer to guide the company as its president,” said Chalke. “I was impressed by the financial engineering that went into the development of the Harmony Loan, as well as its potential to realign the financial incentives in the mortgage business and create more durable mortgage products.”
Chalke created his first business in the early 80s at the age of 25. Chalke Incorporated developed risk management software quickly adopted by the larger players in the insurance industry. Chalke holds a degree in mathematics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
“We’re ready for a transition in the mortgage business analogous to that in the brokerage industry where brokers moved from transaction- to asset-based compensation,” said Chalke. “We’re working with banks looking for a higher value loan for their portfolio, while at the same time offering a dramatically better value proposition to the consumer. It’s not often that a new product is better for everyone in the value chain – this is exciting.”
For more information, visit www.mortgageharmony.com.
