Smartfi hires reverse marketing veteran Martin Lenoir as CMO
Lenoir, who most recently served at AAG prior to its acquisition by FOA, looks forward to growing his new company’s reverse mortgage ambitions
San Diego-based Smartfi Home Loans, which is primarily active as a wholesale lender in the reverse mortgage space and is actively building a retail division that offers reverse mortgage products, has hired industry veteran Martin Lenoir as its new chief marketing officer.
Lenoir most recently served as CMO at American Advisors Group (AAG), the industry’s former leading lender prior to its acquisition last year by Finance of America (FOA). In an exclusive interview with HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily, Lenoir and retail sales president Paul Fiore — who also joined Smartfi recently — discuss what their goals are in continuing to build a dedicated retail reverse mortgage division at the company.
Lenoir said he was impressed with the initial ambitions of the company, and although he had been interested in rejoining the industry, a meeting with the company’s leaders helped tosolidify his decision.
Martin Lenoir, CMO at Smartfi Home Loans.
Martin Lenoir
“With their long-term mindset of growing the market and helping more seniors, they’ve recognized an opportunity to expand retail in addition to wholesale and serve more seniors,” Lenoir said. “So, when the team approached me with the opportunity to help with that growth, I was already interested.”
Lenoir left AAG in late 2022 and observed its acquisition from afar. One of the enticing elements of the new CMO role at Smartfi was the potential reunion he would have with some of his former colleagues.
“I’ve known Paul for over eight years from AAG, and Kim Smith, who leads wholesale, for the same amount of time,” Lenoir explained. “While I don’t know everyone personally, I know a lot of the other participants. It’s a chance to join a great team of experienced people. So, long answer short, I’m joining to help drive the growth of the brand, so we can assist even more seniors, while also participating in the retail build-out with Paul.”
Lenoir felt like there were additional professional growth opportunities in the reverse mortgage space, considering his varied career experience and some of the unique realities of the reverse channel.
“I’ve been in the consumer marketing space my whole career — mostly in financial services, starting at Capital One — but also a bit in other areas like legal services,” Lenoir said. “I enjoy marketing to consumers, and I find the challenge really rewarding. I think the reverse mortgage product category is a big marketing challenge.
“The key question is, how do we get more seniors to understand the role their home equity can play in their financial planning?”
You can read more about Martin Lenoir and Smartfi by visiting the housewire website here.