Kind Lending hires Tammy Richards as COO

Mortgage lender Kind Lending has hired Tammy Richards, who previously held positions at Bank of America, Caliber Home Loans and loanDepot, as its chief operating officer.

Kind Lending, a California-based lender founded by industry veteran Glenn Stearns, is a client of LendArch, a mortgage consulting firm that Richards founded in 2021. LendArch COO Karthik Kumar told HousingWire that Richards’ role as the CEO of LendArch remains unchanged as the company expects to launch its digital fulfillment system soon.

“LendArch has two revenue lines. First One is a product that we’re going to launch in about 60 days. The other is advisory and management services,“ Kumar explained. “Tammy is stepping in with Kind Lending to handle some of their strategic initiatives and she is partnering with them to help grow their vision. Nothing has changed regarding our goal for LendArch’s future.“

Richards will oversee all operational aspects of Kind Lending, with a focus on scaling the company’s infrastructure and processes, the lender stated in a news release. In a prepared statement, Kind Lending President Yvonne Ketchum added that Richards will enhance operational efficiency as Kind continues to grow and innovate.   

According to the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS), Kind Lending had 87 sponsored loan officers and 23 active branches as of Wednesday. 

The lender originated $1.26 billion in mortgages from January to March, more than double (+104%) its volume during the same period in 2023, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. Kind Lending was the 44th-largest U.S. mortgage lender in the first quarter of 2024, the data shows.  

Kind Lending has a stated goal to increase homeownership rates and reduce bias in the lending process. Richards said in a prepared statement that this “commitment to social impact“ attracted her to the company.

Richards spent about 10 years at Bank of America, where her last position was as senior vice president of national underwriting and retail fulfillment executive. She left the bank in 2013 to join Caliber, holding the position of Pacific Southwest division vice president. In 2018, she transitioned to loanDepot as COO. 

But Richards left loanDepot in 2021. After a few months, she filed a lawsuit accusing the lender of closing thousands of loans without proper documentation to drum up money during the refinance boom and in preparation for its initial public offering. 

In 2023, loanDepot sued Richards for allegedly stealing confidential information concerning the lender’s customers. That legal battle is still ongoing.