Huntington Bank — which is poised to become a $280 billion institution after its acquisitions of Cadence Bank and Veritex Bank — is aggressively expanding its mortgage footprint across Texas and the Southeast while emphasizing a “partnership” culture over a traditional acquisition model.
That’s according to Carolyn Gorman, the bank’s senior vice president and mortgage director, who sat down with HousingWire to discuss Huntington’s growth strategy.
Gorman, who has been with Huntington for 15 years and has led the mortgage business for the past three, said the bank is integrating best practices, technology and processes from both legacy organizations as it scales to support an expected 50% increase in mortgage production. And as the 2026 spring homebuying season ramps up, Gorman said Huntington is seeing higher productivity from loan officers due to the bank’s comprehensive product set and a long-standing brand based on trust.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Wolak: Can you talk about Huntington’s decision to call acquisitions partnerships?
Carolyn Gorman: From a mergers-and-acquisitions standpoint, it’s accurate to refer to it as an acquisition. But culturally, we really view it as a partnership.
A good example of how we’re thinking about that in the mortgage business is we’re looking at the full process — including process, systems and technology — that the Cadence colleagues use to originate mortgages, and looking at the full process that the Huntington colleagues use to originate mortgages, and we’re evolving to take the best practices from both of those rather than simply providing Huntington’s process to the Cadence loan officers and asking them to adapt.
We’re going to be adapting all of our colleagues and the sales forces across both legacy institutions to evolve to a new best practice for the future, and that’s really what we mean by partnership.
Wolak: Given that the Cadence and Veritex acquisitions happened so close together, how are the partnerships reshaping the national footprint for Huntington’s mortgage business?
Gorman: They’re very complimentary for us, and so we will move into a very significant share in Texas as a result of these combinations. Texas, in particular, is the area of overlap between Veritex and Cadence Bank. Even within Texas, though — especially in the mortgage space — some of our team that is coming in from Veritex and our team members coming in from Cadence are in different markets across Texas. And so for us, it’s really about having that new presence and space and capability in Texas, as well as across the entire Southeast.
Wolak: After buying Veritax and Cadence within just a few months of each other, Huntington is growing by 25%, but the mortgage team production will grow by 50%. Can you talk about how Huntington is scaling to meet that demand?
Gorman: At Huntington, we’ve been growing our mortgage business consistently over time, and we’ve been working to build scale and capabilities to become a much bigger organization. So we have a lot of confidence about the ability to scale through this growth, and it’s all based on our colleagues.
Our colleagues take a people-first approach to everything that they do, and so the new team that’s coming to us through these partnerships will partner really closely with our existing colleagues and just be very sensitive to customers in the process. We feel like, when we take the customer needs into consideration, and we really partner with these loan officers who are delivering the service, that’s how the winning combination unfolds.
Wolak: How about recruiting and retention? Did Huntington bring on employees through each of the partnerships?
Gorman: Yes, absolutely. We’re thrilled to bring the teams on board and combine all of the groups together. We’ve been, I think, open in the fact that all of the colleagues that are coming into Huntington from from these partner organizations have been aware of their status and their their job roles with us early in the process, right away, at the legal closing of the deal. We think that’s a big advantage and provides a lot of confidence for colleagues. They know what their role will be and what will be expected in the combined team going forward, and the opportunity that exists.
Wolak: One thing you said that stuck out when I asked about scaling up the mortgage business is that Huntington has been growing its mortgage presence for a while. Can you share what the company’s growth plans are going into 2026 and beyond?
Gorman: In 2025, the mortgage industry, when it comes to purchase transactions, was relatively flat. But at Huntington, we had a 10% increase in our purchase business in 2025, and so that’s an area where we really think we will continue to win.
A couple of ways we’re doing that: One is our focus on first-time homebuyers. Almost half of our borrowers are first-time homebuyers, which we think is really significant. It’s higher than the industry average. And we think our success comes from trust; we’ve got a 160-year history of building trust as a brand. And we think the referrals from our customers and local partners who have actually experienced what it’s like to have a mortgage with Huntington, combined with the advice and guidance that we bring in our process that’s designed for first-time homebuyers, really help reduce the anxiety that’s associated with a first-time homebuyer’s experience.
Really, we find that when you can take great care of these customers, they become customers for life, and are more likely to refer to friends and coworkers. And that experience can be really special.
We’ve also found in the last year that our repeat business from existing customers has increased. And that’s success we’re seeing from investments we’ve made in tools to enable and support our loan officers — to be able to have more relevant conversations, more timely conversations, with our current customers about their future needs. Those are things we’ll continue to invest in and we expect to continue to grow in our core markets. We’re finding the level of human connection is a big differentiator.
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