Welcome back to our Compliance Superhero Series! Every month, we highlight a compliance professional who we feel is doing excellent work and ask them about their background, their thoughts on the industry, and any hidden superpowers they have. I’ve reached out to Marvel about adding them to the next phase of the MCU, but in the meantime, you can get to know them here. This month, we’re highlighting Malori Blackbourn, a Compliance Analyst at Benchmark Mortgage. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Welcome! Tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at Benchmark.
Hi! I’m Malori, and I’m a Compliance Analyst at Benchmark. I manage compliance for all of our outbound marketing communication.
What was your path to the compliance space?
My background story actually goes far back. When I was growing up, the owner of Benchmark lived next door to me, and my mom ended up being his assistant for like, nine years.
Fast forward, I was working at a different company, and I got the feeling I wanted to do something new. I sent my resume over to our owner, thinking that he was at least somebody who would be able to give me really good advice. As luck would have it, they needed somebody for a position right away. It fit exactly what I was looking for, and I left my job that day and started at Benchmark the next one.
What compels you about the work you do?
I like that I get to help people succeed. My main goal is always, “How do I help people keep their jobs? How can I make sure that people are happy, and want to stay here?”
If the loan officers, the people out there in the field aren’t happy, they’re not going to be able to do their jobs well and get those loans from start to finish. Maybe it’s the mother in me–I have two kids that I’m trying to help become great, and I want the same thing for our loan officers.
What’s your biggest piece of advice for a successful compliance program?
People say it all the time, but it’s absolutely true: you have to have relationships. If people can’t put a face to a name, it’s that much harder to have difficult conversations. So you have to build that relationship, build that trust, so that they know you’re not just there to say no, you’re there to figure out how to get them what they need. And if you do have to make a compliance decision, there’s a regulatory reason why.
What tools–software or otherwise–are most important for your work?
PerformLine has been a huge success for us. Having something that can go out there and do that crawling, and that initial review of documents and other content, it speeds things up tremendously. With things changing so often, you need a tool that’s just as fast.
And then our communication tools are crucial as well. You have to be able to communicate the changes fast, and you have to be able to do it on whatever scale your company is on, whether text, or email. If any auditor shows up at our office, I can’t call 200 people right away, but I can send a text or an email.
What do you see happening within the compliance space in the next 1-2 years?
Examiners are smart. As more companies use AI, they’re going to start using it too, so they’re going to increase what they can find and how quickly they can find it. They’re going to be way more involved, and way more tech-savvy.
What’s your secret superpower?
Well from a professional standpoint, it has to be my ability to see ahead. I’ve implemented things that seemed strict at the time and then had people come back 5 years later like, “how did you know to do this! We would have been spending a lot more if you didn’t know to think so far ahead.”
If you asked my kids, though, they would probably say my Kermit impression.
