Sue Allon: bringing oversight to the mortgage industry.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn
• Position: EXECUTIVE EDGE

Sue Allon sympathizes with people stung by foreclosure and the mortgage industry meltdown.

"If you grew up the way I did, you'd be motivated to not be poor, so I can sympathize with people who lose their homes," says Allon, 51, who last year founded Denver-based Allonhill, a financial services firm that brings oversight to the mortgage industry by digging deep to review loans for such diverse segments as major banking institutions, government agencies, hedge funds, institutional and private investors. "We didn't even have a home to lose, but we did get evicted a lot. It was tough times just to pay the rent and keep the utilities on."

The daughter of a Colorado Springs auto mechanic and stay-at-home mom, Allon attended Colorado College on full scholarship and majored in economics.

"I had an aunt who was one of the first woman 'landmen' in oil and gas drilling. She'd pull up in her '69 Camaro convertible wearing a Chanel suit, and I saw what a tough businesswoman she was," says Allon, who in 1997 founded The Murrayhill Co., which pioneered the concept of independent third-party oversight of loans and servicers. In 2004, she sold that company - named for the Pittsburgh street on which her husband, Harvey, grew up - and emerged from retirement four years later to found Allonhill, which in September 2008 employed four and today employs 51 full-time, plus 125 contract analysts.

"This is the Super Bowl for the mortgage industry," says Allon, who insists she won't watch its comeback from the bench and intends to employ hundreds over the next several years. "My mission is to change the mortgage industry, restore its credibility and bring integrity back."

She bristles over bad industry practices such as no-document loans.

"The only no-doc loan should require 100 percent down," she says, laughing. "And I once listened in on a call with a borrower whose income didn't qualify her for the loan, so the processor said, 'I can print you another W-2.' I'm disturbed by stories like that. The industry could have done better, and I...