Melissa Macerato, partner & EVP of sales and marketing at reverse mortgage lender Longbridge Financial, has been named one of the “10 most inspiring women leaders of 2021” by IEra WomenLeaders Magazine, citing the executive’s leadership during a period of company growth and how she assisted the company through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Like so many businesses, when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S., Longbridge faced a truly unprecedented challenge,” Macerato’s entry reads on the magazine’s website. “Melissa chose to take this challenge as a time of opportunity – and worked with her leadership team to transition Longbridge into a remote business model. Melissa’s quick thinking and adaptability paid off – the epicenter of the virus, New York, was just miles away from the company’s Mahwah, N.J. headquarters.”

She is credited as a key figure in the company’s “record earnings” in 2020, the entry says, “stemming from persistent volume growth and improved productivity.”

Macerato is also described as a key factor in employee retention and the growth of Longbridge’s workforce, as well as an asset to the growth and shaping of Longbridge’s proprietary reverse mortgage product suite, “Platinum.” She is also described as a key player in rolling out Longbridge’s “Reverse Made Easy” educational platform, designed for new brokers to incorporate reverse mortgage products into those they offer to borrowers. She has also made a difference in helping to define the company’s culture, the entry says.

“[W]ith a majority of Longbridge’s managers being women, Melissa has had an empowering impact,” the entry reads. “Another area where Melissa excels in inspiring women leaders is by being transparent in communicating the importance of boundaries, namely when it comes to the work-life balance. Armed with these qualities, the steadfast leader has been taking the company to new heights.”

Read Macerato’s entry at the IEra WomenLeaders Magazine website.