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24 Kim Morris brings a 28-year history of property tax and mortgage servicing knowledge to Accumatch, with specific experience in escalations, reverse mortgage, tax certificates and, most importantly, an unrelenting focus on customer service and product excellence. Having joined Accumatch in September of 2015 in the company's Tax Operations division, she is now SVP of Operations. Morris' previous experience includes Director of Operations at Fannie Mae, Senior Operations Manager at First American Commercial Real Estate Tax Service, Operations Manager at First American Residential Real Estate Tax Service, and Senior Operations Manager at Transamerica Real Estate Tax Service. How has the mortgage industry evolved in its approach to diversity and inclusion over the course of your career? I began working in the mortgage industry in 1988, just after graduating from college. At that time, it was not about diversity and inclusion; it was about meeting racial quotas for hiring and promoting people. Hiring managers were forced to hire or promote specific ethnic groups or sexes, and you were not always able to hire the most qualified person for the job. is caused a lot of frustration amongst hiring managers and a lot of animosity in the workplace between the selected staff members. As people truly began to understand the value of diversity, established quotas quickly became a thing of the past. When I hire people today, I do not think about employees based on sex, race, color, national origin, or religion. I think about how well this person will fit into the culture that we are trying to build and what added value they can bring to the organization. It is about empowering people and learning from each other, and it must start from the top down in the organization. e more diverse a workforce is, the better variety of ideas are generated, making way for groundbreaking discoveries that may have otherwise gone undiscovered. Who are your role models in business? As a child, my father—Ronnie Morris— was my role model in business and life. He was a kind soul that cared so much about people and his business, and he knew that it took relationships in both to be successful. He worked his way up in the mortgage industry from a clerical position all the way to executive management. I always aspired to be just like him and admired him wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, when I was only 23 years old, I abruptly lost my dad to a heart attack. I took that as my queue to follow in his footsteps and entered into the mortgage industry in a clerical role and, like him, have worked my way up to an executive role. Today, I still find myself asking "What would Dad have done?" in different situations. "How would he have reacted? What steps would he have taken to resolve this issue?" I think back to his life and all that I learned from him and somehow always find the answers. Do you feel you have ever been discriminated against in a business setting? If so, how did you overcome this challenge? Unfortunately, I understand discrimination firsthand as it has happened to me more than once in my career. Being a young, ambitious woman in business in the early 1990s, most of the ideas that I had were either disregarded or stolen and presented by a man in a higher-level position than me. It was very frustrating, but it did not stop me from coming up with new ideas and at least getting them in front of someone who could implement them. As time went on and perspectives of women in business started to change, I began getting recognition for my contributions. It took a long time and a lot of frustration, as the only thing that was holding me back in my career was being a strong, smart, outspoken, competitive woman. FIVE MINUTES WITH Get to Know Industry Executives Beyond the Boardroom "Another misconception is that anyone who is an advocate for diversity is trying to get special treatment. Being treated differently is exactly what people who are fighting for diversity don't want. They want a workplace where everyone is welcome and free to contribute value and then be rewarded for it fairly." Kim Morris SVP of Operations, Accumatch

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