JULIE PIEPHO
Principal, CMB
Julie Piepho is a Principal Consultant with BlackFin Group. Julie is nationally recognized and respected for her mortgage industry and advisory expertise. She has over four decades of experience in the mortgage industry including executive positions with Cornerstone Mortgage, Norwest Mortgage and Wells Fargo Mortgage, along with managing several Colorado and Wyoming community bank mortgage divisions while coaching and leading sales and operations teams. She graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and holds the prestigious Master Certified Mortgage Banker designation from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
She is past chairman of the Colorado Board of Mortgage Loan Originators where she was appointed by the governor for a 6-year term for the inaugural board. Julie was a member of the Board of Directors for the Mortgage Bankers of America (MBA), past chairman of the Residential Board of Governors (RESBOG), and was a committee member for MORPAC, MAA, CMB, the State and Legislative Regulatory, and Investment and Pension Committees for MBA. She was a board member of The Mortgage Collaborative. She was recently past Chairwoman of the Board of Governors of Colorado Mortgage Lenders Association and continues to be a board member. She is a board member for the Everitt Real Estate Center at Colorado State University. She also serves as a Board Member and Capital Campaign Vice-Chair for Animal Friends Alliance in Fort Collins, CO.
Piepho has been honored with many awards. She has been honored by MBA with the Andrew D. Woodside Distinguished Service Award in 2017, along with the Schumacher-Bolduc Award for service to MORPAC in 2013. In 2018 Housing Wire honored her as a Women of Influence. She was honored as a Woman of Vision by the Northern Colorado Women of Influence in 2017. Additionally, she was honored by the Northern Colorado Business Report as a Woman of Distinction and again as their Leading Lady in Business in 2021, and by the Colorado Mortgage Lenders Association for the E. Michael Rosser Lifetime Achievement Award for those that personify high principles, ethics and professional values, among other awards. In 2021 the Everitt Real Estate Center of Colorado State University honored her with the Real Estate Hall of Fame award.
She has been quoted as a subject matter expert for the mortgage industry in 3 books: History of Mortgage Banking in the West by Mike Rosser and Diane Sanders; Strategically Transforming the Mortgage Banking Industry by James M. Deitch CPA, CMB along with his second book Digitally Transforming the Mortgage Banking Industry.
She recently served on a 4 month sub-committee for the State of Colorado for Affordable Housing to determine how to distribute the $400 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 which resulted in a paper that was presented to the Governor and to the legislature in January 2022.