Meet Lee-Ann McEllister

Lee-Ann McEllister is the Director of Sales for Western Canada. She leads a team of Business Development Managers (BDMs) from British Columbia all the way to Manitoba, a role she has held for the last two years. A five-year veteran of MCAP, she began her tenure here as a BDM herself, new to the mortgage industry following roles in retail banking.

As a leader, Lee-Ann sees a key aspect of her role as a coach, nurturing each individual team member’s strengths (even if they don’t see them) and supporting them. “Not just the day-to-day tasks, but also overcoming any challenges for their personal development and growth,” she says. “We are a really big coaching team,” she adds. “I coach individually with team members on a weekly basis. And then together, we do team coaching. That’s the wonderful thing about having a coaching culture – what ends up happening is people start coaching each other.”

“Collaboration is key to our success.”

The BDM role is a very individualized role as team members are on the road by themselves. They are accountable and responsible for their own region and work independently. But that’s not to say there isn’t a solid team bond – in fact it’s strong team spirit and collaboration that cultivates a highly performing, highly engaged team. And it’s how Blue Culture manifests for Lee-Ann’s BDMs.

“For us, collaboration is the key to our success,” says Lee-Ann. “We realized that if we come together as a team, if we share best practices and we collaborate, we become better together.”

“Blue Culture conveys the feeling that everyone cares.”

One of the tenets of Blue Culture is that Behind Every Mortgage, There Are People, and Lee-Ann feels this truly comes to life through her team’s relationship with mortgage brokers. “Whenever I talk to brokers, I learn how much they love this campaign,” she says of Blue Culture. “I hear from them that Blue Culture conveys the feeling that everyone cares. Everyone is dedicated and they want to do the right thing. There is this sense of accountability when you’re working with someone at MCAP. You understand you’re not just working with that one person, but rather you’re working with an entire team of people behind the scenes that support each other.” She adds that feedback is an important component of broker relationships. “When they give us feedback, they know they can trust us to have those conversations and that we want open communication with them.”

“When we all raise the bar, it helps all Canadians.”

Over her five years in the mortgage industry, Lee-Ann has witnessed some change, primarily with the way mortgage partners work together. “We’re seeing to see a collaborative effort across the industry. It has evolved over time where we understand that if we all raise the bar, it helps all Canadians at the end of the day.”

By encouraging ongoing collaboration, communication and feedback across her team and across partners within and outside MCAP, Lee-Ann is living Blue Culture. The result is a network of strong relationships that lift up every team member and ultimately benefits the Canadian homebuyer at every point of their homeownership journey.