We know that CEOs tend to have big egos – sometimes even delusions of
grandeur. But it seems that Patrick Flood, the former CEO of
Christian mortgage lender HomeBanc, has a fully fledged Messianic
Complex. The WSJ’s Valerie Bauerlein spoke
to him in the wake of HomeBanc’s implosion:
Mr. Flood, the former CEO whose January severance package was $5 million,
plans to start another faith-based mortgage company. He says HomeBanc employees
and customers will take what they learned and plant the seeds wherever they
land. "When Jesus got on the cross, people at the time thought that he
failed because he died and the ministry ended," he said. "But people
around him have cascaded it into the greatest movement in history. The company
being a financial failure doesn’t mean that the work has ended."
Bauerlein’s article paints HomeBanc to be a cult which locked employees into
three-year contracts and hired them only if they were willing to push the company’s
products to their friends and family. I sincerely hope that Flood’s new company
never gets off the ground. Right now, what mortgage lending needs is less in
the way of charismatic leaders, and more in the way of reality-based underwriting.