WFG Subsidiary Names President, Chief Technology Officer

November 29, 2016

west, which uses technology and process to connect stakeholders around a transaction to help meet regulatory requirements, has appointed Lance Melber as president and Gorkem Kuterdem as chief technology officer (CTO).

Melber was the CEO and co-founder of Valutrust, a national mortgage services and technology development business.  Melber continued on in his role with Valutrust after it was acquired by WFG in 2013. He founded Valuetrust in 2010. Melber also has served as president and CEO of eSmartLoan.com, as well as president for Capital One Home Loans.

Kuterdem takes the CTO position for west having served in the same position for WFG. He came to WFG in 2011 as part of its acquisition of an independent title company in Seattle. Previously, he’s also worked with a startup that was one of the first participants in electronic delivery of title market share data via the Internet. He has since been involved in developing and implementing platforms for title and escrow production, integration, business intelligence and workflow management. He is currently the technical lead and architect for WFG’s transformation to a single operating platform.

“The overarching purpose of west is to revolutionize the mortgage and real estate process,” said Steve Ozonian, chairman of west. “Melber and Kuterdem embody the pioneering spirit behind the creation of west. Lance and Gorkem are truly entrepreneurs, both with the ability to rethink long-accepted processes and concepts. The way the industry goes about originating and closing mortgage transactions today is the ultimate expression of ad hoc process building. Lance and Gorkem will hold nothing about this ineffective process sacred beyond serving the client and consumer in the best way possible. To that end, they are the embodiment of west’s resolve to destroy the cumbersome mortgage process as it exists and rebuild it as something far more effective.”


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