Rocket Companies has been teasing broker-partners with promises of Super Bowl Ads and other exciting fintech developments, but today's announcement that Katie Sweeney has joined Rocket Pro's c-suite takes the cake as the most shocking development the company has unveiled in 2025 so far.
Sweeney is joining Rocket Pro as Executive Vice President of Strategy and Broker Advocacy, and in her new role will be responsible for advocating on behalf of Rocket’s brokers both internally, within Rocket’s broader mortgage lending ecosystem, and externally, as an advocate on Capitol Hill.
Sweeney and Rocket Pro's general manager, Dan Sogorka, spoke with NMP this morning in an exclusive interview concerning the hire.
Sweeney explained that advocating on behalf of Rocket Pro’s brokers internally means "making sure that Rocket Pro understand what's being built for the company as a whole and how that can create opportunities for mortgage brokers... Ensuring that all of the talented people here are also building things that take mortgage brokers into consideration."
Previously, Sweeney served as co-founder and CEO of the Brokers Action Coalition (BAC), before transitioning to the role of Board Advisor as of January 23, 2025. Former Director of Advocacy, Rachel Clark, has since taken on the position of Executive Director for BAC. Meanwhile, Brendan McKay will continue in his role as Chief Advocacy Officer for BAC.
Sweeney also has experience being a broker leader and advocate as the former Executive Vice President of Strategy at ARIVE, and former Chairwoman and CEO of AIME, before her time at BAC.
In her former role at ARIVE, Sweeney said her “primary objective at ARIVE was all about democratizing technology and making enterprise level solutions available to the small business sector. I got to marry that into my role with AIME by being able to focus on bringing more product diversity to this space.”
As the CEO of BAC, Sweeney said she developed a greater understanding of the advocacy world in Washington D.C., including how those “legislative and regulatory environments sometimes inhibit the small business sector and mortgage brokers in our space."
“I think we can create more change for good by focusing on the businesses that are central to their local communities,” Sweeney told NMP. “And when [Rocket Pro General Manager] Dan Sogorka came up with the idea and the opportunity to come here at Rocket and marry all of those things together under one roof, I couldn't pass it up.”
Misperceptions & False Narratives
“There are a lot of misconceptions about who Rocket has been and where they want to go,” Sweeney told NMP, adding that she held a few misconceptions about the company herself.
When Sweeney began BAC she wanted a more diverse advocacy board that represented large, mid-size, and small companies. “And in doing so, we really learned that the perception that Rocket's primary focus is on the retail side of the business isn't necessarily accurate,” Sweeney said. “Rocket Pro does a significant portion of business for the company. There's a lot of equal investment across the board, and I think the primary goal for this business is to serve the consumer in whatever way they want to be served.”
Rocket Pro General Manager Dan Sogorka added to Sweeney’s response by emphasizing how Rocket prioritizes its broker partners relative to its retail program.
“We have [Rocket Promise Program] that is very favorable to our broker partners,” Sogorka said. “We do not retain servicing or solicit loans that we originate on behalf of broker partners. I mean, that alone was pretty shocking to me," Sogorka noted about when he joined Rocket Pro five months ago.
"We're the best servicer in the world," he continued, "and we've gone out of our way…to give [brokers] so much autonomy that we're not even going to retain servicing. We want [brokers] to be absolutely certain that we're not doing anything with [their] clients.”
Sweeney admitted that after speaking with Sogorka and others on Rocket’s leadership team she was surprised to find that her and Rocket’s legislative goals are “very aligned at the federal level.”
“I was not aware — as I don't think many people are — that Rocket has been a supporter of the trigger lead legislation since the very first congressional session [The Trigger Leads Abatement Act of 2023, proposed by Ritchie Torres],” Sweeney said. “I think that was step one for me, really getting a picture of how this organization views the government affairs world and the world of lending policy.”
“There's already a lot of alignment. There's just a lack of understanding,” Sweeney continued. “And I think part of my role will be bringing that to the forefront and leveraging all of the resources that exist at Rocket to create an even larger, um, advocacy group on behalf of mortgage brokers.”
Sweeney also noted how her move to Rocket Pro signifies a cultural shift as well.
“I was really impressed by their ethical and moral compass that’s a core component of the culture here [at Rocket],” Sweeney added. “Being able to see that people really live by doing the right thing and, in earnest, want to build something incredible for their broker partners — that's all I've ever wanted to do. And I think the rest of it is noise that's not necessary. It distracts us all from our primary objective.”
Addressing AIME & UWM History
Of the organizations that Sweeney previously headed, AIME was notably associated with Rocket’s fierce competitor, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), its title sponsor. In 2021, NMP reported that AIME barred Rocket’s then number one broker, Loan Factory CEO Thuan Nguyen, from attending its Hall Of AIME event, revoking his invitation.
In addressing her history with AIME and its title sponsor, UWM, Sweeney said: “I know that there is an assumption of AIME’s alignment, or ARIVE’s alignment, or where some of my past roles have led me. But I really did spend a lot of time working with brokers from all different backgrounds, and it was a huge part of the reason why when we started BAC.”
Additionally, Sweeney asks the broker community, and especially Rocket Pro’s brokers, to trust her.
“For anybody who has questions or anyone who wants to have a discussion, my phone number's out there. It’s not hard to find,” Sweeney said. “But, more than that, if you trusted me seven years ago when I joined ARIVE to bring something to market, you know we did it. And it changed the landscape of how technology companies serve the broker channel."
She continued, "I asked people to trust me when I joined AIME to give us a chance to build a diverse community of people who wanted to help each other. And we did it. And I would ask them to trust me now that the goal for this team [Rocket Pro] is to build a set of resources and capabilities that allow every type of broker out there to continue to build their business in whatever direction they want.”
Updated 5:30 PM ET: Sogorka mistakenly refers to the "Rocket Promise" program as the "cross-channel conflict program."
