Higher House & Finance Holding Co. introduced Wednesday that it has appointed Hugh Frater, a founding associate of BlackRock and former CEO of Fannie Mae, to its board of administrators as the corporate leans additional into its Tinman AI mortgage platform.
Frater, whose position turned efficient March 23, brings expertise spanning mortgage-backed securities (MBS), company finance and industrial actual property lending at a time when nonbank lenders are racing to modernize underwriting and secondary market execution with automation and AI.
“Hugh has helped form the fashionable housing finance system from the bottom up. He’s precisely the form of chief you need within the room once you’re rebuilding housing finance,” stated Vishal Garg, CEO and founding father of Higher.
Garg pointed to Frater’s roles in serving to construct BlackRock’s fixed-income and mortgage-backed securities companies, main Berkadia Industrial Mortgage LLC and steering Fannie Mae by way of “one of the complicated durations in mortgage historical past,” a reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we use AI to make the mortgage expertise sooner, simpler, and cheaper for People by way of Higher’s AI-native Tinman Platform, Hugh’s expertise might be essential on the board degree in guiding our long-term technique,” Garg added.
Frater, a founding associate of BlackRock, helped to increase the agency from a fixed-income and MBS specialist into what’s now the world’s largest asset supervisor.
He later served as CEO and board member at Fannie Mae from 2018 to 2022, a interval that coated the COVID-19 boom-and-bust cycle in mortgage rates, file ranges of refinance quantity, and speedy swings in credit score and servicing threat throughout the company market.
Previous to Fannie Mae, Frater was CEO and chairman of Berkadia, an company and industrial actual property lending and funding gross sales platform that providers multifamily and different income-producing properties.
Frater at the moment serves on the boards of Hippo Holdings Inc., Vessel Applied sciences, Findigs and the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“The mortgage banking trade has lengthy been prepared for innovation, fashionable customers are demanding it and Vishal and Higher have constantly pursued that imaginative and prescient,” Frater stated in an announcement. “To sort out the housing affordability disaster, we want a clear system that connects capital with quite a lot of housing wants and does so at the very best sensible price to customers.”
Frater stated Higher’s Tinman AI platform “offers a considerate strategy to delivering extra housing” and added that he goals to help the board as the corporate rolls out the expertise to lenders, banks and fintechs nationwide.
Frater’s appointment comes as Higher is emphasizing Tinman as its core development engine — and as investor and regulatory scrutiny of AI in underwriting and pricing intensifies. The corporate, which trades on Nasdaq below the ticker BETR, has been positioning Tinman as an “AI-native” platform that automates knowledge consumption, decisioning and capital markets execution throughout the mortgage course of.
Higher reported that within the fourth quarter of 2025, its funded mortgage quantity grew 56% yr over yr. The corporate additionally reported that Tinman funded mortgage quantity of $646 million in This fall 2025, up 34% quarter over quarter.
Harit Talwar, chairman of Higher’s board, stated Frater’s expertise aligns with the corporate’s purpose of overhauling the standard mortgage course of whereas producing returns for shareholders.
“Higher is well-positioned to revamp the standard mortgage course of and ship a superior buyer expertise in addition to engaging returns to shareholders with its AI-native platform, Tinman,” Talwar stated. “Hugh’s expertise, insights and judgment might be invaluable alongside the corporate’s journey.”
This text was generated utilizing HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor earlier than publication. The system helps convert firm bulletins and trade knowledge into HousingWire-style information protection.
