Why Billionaire Businessman Patti Albiero Says It’s Okay To Fail

yes! News: What was your experience like as a Latino navigating the mortgage industry?

PA: My superpower is Latina. A big part of our success is outreach to underserved communities and people who look at my company and see themselves in our story. When trying to penetrate demographics, it should be represented by demographics. A lot of the time companies target the Latino market, but they don’t hire Latinos.

At first I was scared and walked on eggshells. But I’m a woman and I’m Latina, so I need to rock myself. I want to get excited, I want to win. We respect men, but why don’t men respect us? It’s because they don’t know how. There are still hardships, but I hope that the next generation will change if women like me raise their voices.

yes! News: What inspired you to start your own company?

PA: I got married at the young age of 24 and had two children. By the time I was 30, her first husband left me. Suddenly he walked out the door. My safety net is gone. I divorced and found myself failing. We were in a mortgage downcycle at the time. So not only was I depressed, but I had no job. My parents helped me through the struggle and it took me about a year to get back on my feet. At that point, I couldn’t commit to her 9 to her 5 job…that was the early steps of my self-employment.

After that, I was able to date this wonderful man. He claims to be my husband now, but he was a successful entrepreneur. He invested all his own company’s profits in the tech sector during the tech boom and…we got really, really, really rich. But overnight, we got really, really poor. I’m like, “Would you like to come with me to work? Would you like to come with me to mortgage?” So he jumped right in. We were synergistically a merger that no one else could have done. We will celebrate our 20th anniversary next year.