Commonwealth USA Settlements, LLC, (CWUSA) appointed Tom Frunzi as executive vice president of corporate development. CWUSA is a national title and settlement services provider.
In his role with CWUSA, Frunzi will be charged with growing new business as well as supporting existing client relationships. He also will be responsible for introducing the company’s UNITE service to the market. UNITE – a unique partnership vehicle, was developed to assist smaller settlement services firms struggling with the cost of growing lender and investor demands, such as third-party certification services (including ALTA Best Practices or even SOC 2, Type 2 verification). This solution will enable these settlement services firms to collaborate with CWUSA in completing the settlement orders, according to the press release.
The common concern among many such firms is the possibility of losing lender business should they be unable to bear such costs and undergo certification. With UNITE, CWUSA would serve as the primary contact for lenders demanding such prerequisites before awarding business; while CWUSA’s UNITE partner or partners would continue to manage lower-risk services, CWUSA would oversee the remaining tasks. UNITE would empower those smaller firms to control their own costs and prices without having to undertake costly certification procedures, eliminating the difficult decision between bearing crippling costs or losing entire portfolios.
“Instead of facing the choice of taking on crippling expenses to prove their levels of compliance or losing significant lender business to other firms able to afford expensive vetting and certification processes; smaller agencies and settlement firms would be able to maintain much of their existing business without crushing expenses, while Commonwealth would take on the higher-risk tasks,” Frunzi said of UNITE.
Frunzi comes to CWUSA as a seasoned veteran of more than 32 years in the settlement services and mortgage lending industry. He was most recently SVP, business development with PCN/Safe Escrow, LLC, in Pittsburgh. He also has served in the role of chief marketing officer for a national settlement services agency; executive vice president with ValuAmerica and SVP for more than 17 years with Lender’s Service Inc. During the course of his career, he also founded and built the Phenix Group, a successful, financial services-oriented consultancy.
“Commonwealth needed a dynamic, experienced and creative executive to promote something as unique as UNITE,” CWUSA President Angela Murin said,. “Tom is the perfect fit. He is no stranger to bringing new and unique products to the market. He’s also exceptionally skilled at cutting through the background noise in the industry so that firms understand how a new service stands apart from the others and, more importantly, how it can help them.”
“UNITE is unlike any other vehicle designed to help smaller settlement services firms to survive spiraling costs without surrendering their autonomy to a merger or acquisition,” CWUSA Chief Technology Officer Shanon Lake-Catello said. “Executives throughout the lending industry know and respect Tom, who has built a reputation for getting to the heart of the value proposition and how it applies to his clients. That makes him the ideal choice to help us grow the market’s understanding of what UNITE can really do for them.”