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28 The Exchange Prior to joining Xome in 2020, Mike Rawls served as the EVP of Servicing for Mr. Cooper Group, where he held operational responsibility for the company's entire servicing portfolio. Since joining the company in 2000, Rawls has served in several leadership positions including as President of Champion Mortgage and senior roles in the company's originations channels. Previously, Rawls held leadership roles at Banc One Financial Services from 1997–1999 and at Household Financial Services from 1991–1997. Speaking to DS News, Rawls discussed how COVID-19 has changed the way his company conducts business. What were some of the biggest challenges Xome has faced this year, and how has it changed what your "daily normal" looks like? It's truly been a learning experience. e biggest change was having everyone go to a work-from-home or remote-working environment. We were fortunate in that we were already going through a remodel of one of our spaces, so we had close to half of our team members already working from home. As things hit in March, it was a pretty easy transition for us, and it did go smoother than I expected. We had over 90% of our folks working from home within about 10 days. We were very pleased with how that went. e way we've learned to communicate with our teams remotely, has been a good learning experience, and one that I think we'll maintain as we move forward into whatever normal looks like going forward. e other key thing that we're seeing is that [this year has] tested everyone's technology platforms and whether they could withstand this remote-work environment again. So far, so good. It sounds like almost every servicer has managed through this well. Now we're starting to see some of the innovation come into play. We just rolled out our do-it-yourself, customer- led interior inspection application, Inspex. I think we're going to see a lot more innovation come out of this period, which will be great. Are there any processes you've adapted to from a practical standpoint that you plan to keep in place even once the health crisis is resolved? Work-from-home will be a thing that we maintain. It probably looks a little different moving forward. I'm a big "culture" guy. I've been with the organization for 20 years. Having a strong workplace culture is key to having a strong company and providing strong service. As we get into the "new normal," I think you'll see us move to a hybrid style of work where people are coming into the office periodically for meetings and then working from home the rest of the time. I think that flexibility has been well received. I think you're also going to continue to see evolution of new technologies, whether it be the valuation space or on the title side. We've invested heavily in our decisioning engine to help bring in all the data that's available today, between public records, credit data, and the number of transactions we've completed at Xome and Title365. Using our decisioning engine, over 40% of the time we're able to provide a clear decision instantaneously for our lending partners. I think you'll continue to see that evolve. Innovation like that will create capacity in a time when capacity is going to be a real challenge. You're going to keep seeing historically low interest rates for the near future and then you're going to see an increase in delinquencies. We're already starting to see it as customers are coming out of forbearances. You're going to see strains on both sides of the house—both the lending and servicing sides—and that's going to force more innovation into the marketplace. A version of this interview previously appeared in an episode of DS5: Inside the Industry. Mike Rawls CEO, Xome Get to Know Industry Executives Beyond the Boardroom "Having a strong workplace culture is key to having a strong company and providing strong service."