Connie Downs Email & Phone Number

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Corporate Compliance Manager for both Loan Origination and Mortgage Servicing. Responsible for the oversight of both divisions to ensure knowledge and understanding of federal consumer lending laws and the ability to exhibit that understanding through monitoring results and effective remediation of processes and controls.

Florence, SC

• Responsible for managing a staff of two supervisors, fourteen quality specialists, a business analysts and a procedures writer to conduct reviews for pre-foreclosure and pre-sale loans, meeting all key risk indicators.
• Developed and implemented quality/audit tools and methodology, such as benchmarking, analytical and measurement tools. Maintained a 98% accuracy rate for quality control.
• Developed and designed data collection capability to produce effective work queues.
• Cross trained department to handle production volume fluctuations on different teams and met or
• exceeded production standards.
• Reduced loans in inventory down from 15,000 to 4,000 (an acceptable inventory balance) through designing and implementing processes, supporting systems and documented procedures.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

• Started as a contractor working for Robert Half Technology on a 90 day contract on November 7, 2010 and was hired in a permanent position on February 8, 2010. Responsible for implementing balancing controls for the.
• Developed and implemented a mechanism using Excel to balance monetary balances for customer payments, payoffs, foreclosure liquidations and all non-monetary transactions to ensure the data warehouse received accurate.
• Reviewed all production reports for accuracy and developed a User Acceptance Test (UAT) to be utilized prior to any new report going to production.
• Directly oversaw and tested all production reports as the company was converting reporting tools from Business Objects to Sequel Server. This involved 30 reports in total and errors were found in 80% of the reports.

• Monitoring, reporting and training programs with emphasis on Compliance and Business Continuity.
• Developed and implemented policies and procedures for compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and designed online accessible training. Resulted in successful closure of an outstanding audit finding.
• Identified all business processes, segregated them into compliance risk categories, developed standardized, documented operational procedures, completed Risk Control Self Assessments, designed controls where gaps.
• Created a functional organizational hierarchy that was utilized by executive management.
• Developed, documented, implemented and tested business continuity plans for all Capital Markets critical processes that avoided operational losses due to various degrees of business interruption. Completed ahead of.

• Direct responsibility for the design and maintenance of a nationwide pricing control system as well as analytical report design and production. Managed a staff of 5 programmers.
• Designed and implemented a change control process coupled with User Acceptance Testing that successfully passed a targeted internal audit and directly contributed to a $1 million dollar increase in gain on sale of.
• Created timely and effective business requirement specifications for new products and table mainteance for pricing rule changes. Resulted in maximum profitability of products in the secondary market.
• Designed reporting that detected and enabled correction of inaccurate pricing and trend reporting that identified effectiveness of loss reduction efforts and levels of product usage. Reporting accomplished from.

• Led a high-level project to create a new, centralized department to resolve a strategic corporate weakness in pricing controls. Managed the project schedule, resources and a $2 million budget.
• Project was completed on schedule and under budget. At the close of the project, the new department produced $9.4 million in improved revenue due to process improvements and controls with a 50% reduction in staffing.

• Subject matter expert on regulatory compliance requirements. Responsible for audit and monitoring of regulatory compliance performance for the nationwide Correspondent Lending Division.
• Developed infrastructure, performed audits, provided reporting. Developed effective remediation plans after thorough research and root cause analysis. Coordinated all internal and external audits involving my division..
• Consistently received positive feedback from executive management business partners for the level of support and results produced. Improvements to processes and monitoring led to annual operational cost saves of.
• Expert on assessment of mortgage related fees in accordance with Truth-in-Lending High Cost Laws and individual state predatory lending laws. Developed Excel based calculators to detect excessive fees.

Greater Chicago Area

• Led and managed high-level, cross-functional projects involving significant compliance risk and/or financial exposure.
• Generated savings of $.5 million via an extensive ground-up, rebuild of the Mortgage Fraud Investigation Department that involved the redesign of several processes and the addition of numerous system enhancements..
• Achieved savings of $.5 million by creating the Recourse Administration department. Led the complete assessment of all processes within various units and their consolidation where appropriate.
• Led the Risk Management Department to implement the Patriot Act customer information program in accordance with new rules and regulations. Delivered new program ahead of schedule.

• Note: Name at that time was Connie Bevilacqua.Creation and maintenance of overall regulatory compliance performance and project management for all regulatory compliance related matters for all business units including.
• Successfully assessed the risk/reward ratio for mergers and acquisitions and evaluated compliance risk. Prepared executive management recommendations. Resulted in five successful integrations.
• Acted as liaison with external regulators and agencies for all significant issues, concerns and audits. Always received a minimum of acceptable ratings.
• Successfully led cross-functional project teams to implement RESPA escrow accounting rules changes that led to compliant system enhancements and business processes for both Loan Production and Loan Servicing divisions.

Associates, Business Administration

Real Estate

Obtained a license to sell real estate in Indiana. License is currently inactive.