Beth O’Brien is an iconic female leader in the finance industry with a strong educational background and a distinguished career working with Fortune 100 companies on Wall Street.
She is now bringing her experience to help investors on Main Street with the launch of her company that serves that unique niche.
O’Brien is the founder and CEO of CoreVest American Finance, a private lender to residential real estate investors. CoreVest, originally known as Colony American Finance, was founded in 2014 to address the unique needs of investors in the single-family rental and bridge loan spaces that were not served well by either commercial or residential products.
Under O’Brien’s leadership, CoreVest has closed more than $3 billion in loans and financed more than 25,000 properties across 43 states. The company won the NREI/IMN award for innovation by a nonbank lender in 2016 and was chosen by Freddie Mac for its inaugural securitization in the single-family rental market in 2017.
O’Brien has also held other positions of leadership within the mortgage finance industry before founding her own company.
Previously, she served as the executive vice president at Auction.com, where she ran residential capital markets, and was president of AuctionFinance.com, where she ran the financing strategy for the platform. In that capacity, she managed single-family and multifamily loan sales and founded a proprietary private money lender also geared toward the investor market.
O’Brien also held prior leadership positions at big banks such as Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. She has more than 25 years of experience in almost every aspect of the mortgage industry, as both a principal and an advisor.
O’Brien has received several awards and honors throughout the years for her leadership in the mortgage finance industry. In March 2018, she was invited to be a member of the Forbes Real Estate Council. She is also regularly asked to speak at events and on panels across the industry.
O’Brien uses her position to promote women and diversity within the industry.
She noted that only one in 10 women hold leadership positions in their company, and that nearly half of men see this as diverse.
“I found this incredibly eye-opening. One out of 10 is just not diverse. What is it that still makes us think business is a man’s world?” she asked.
She now uses her position to promote diversity and inclusion. She also regularly contributes to several industry publications, where she uses her knowledge and expertise to provide training and information to others in the mortgage finance industry.
O’Brien uses these pieces to promote gender diversity and inclusion, or even to educate the space on a specific topic, such as the single-family rental market.
